Dawn of War Codex

Hello, we are two newbros. We posted once in General a few weeks ago and got very good and polite responses. We like this game and community.

At any rate, we would like comments on an assertion we have come up with. We think balance at low levels of play is... interesting to say the least. In playing many 1v1s vs each other for many weeks, we have had very wild swings in wins depending on which race each of us plays.

Eldar at our level seems the most raging OP of any race we've seen in any game. At tier 1, a ridiculously easy strat is simply to spam nothing but banshees and a-move at stuff. Yeah, I already know what you'll say - get set-up teams or whatever. But it is way harder to pull that off (counter with set-up teams) than it is to just spam banshees and a-move. Then if that wasn't enough, once you hit tier 2... holy sweet mother of Jesus. Wraithguard just destroy fricking everything. And wraithguard protected by a wraithlord? Ridiculous. Now, I suck worse than anyone at this game - as in I don't think you could find a player who is worse. But to test our theory that Eldar are way OP at our level, I got online and 1v1'd a few other noob players who are absolutely better than me because I've played them before... but this time I played Eldar against them. I won every game. At any rate, in our 1v1's vs. each other, we have now banned Eldar from being played by either of us.

On to other races. It seems many races have issues dealing with armor. I can't deal with Tyranid tyrant guard with multiple races - he's just too tough, and you just can't build enough stuff to deal with him, especially when a bunch of support accompanies him. But the worst is the carnifexes. For one thing, I have never killed a carnifex as orks. We did a pure test game, meaning he just built a carni and stuck him in the middle of the map, and it took 3 upgraded ork looted tanks to kill the thing. In a real game the things just can't be killed, and if he ever gets one - even one - it's good game. Earlier today, I had put him in his base playing Ordo Malleus. Then I literally took the entire map - all points. He had only 2 units plus his hero sitting in his base. But he got out a carnifex. I tried pretty much every unit I could think of. Dreadnoughts. An endless stream of terminators. Strike squads with full upgrades including psy cannons. The flamethrower squad with their upgrade. Interceptors. Land raider. Etc. EVERYTHING DIED. I even used the orbital. Nothing worked, and he won.

Anyway, we like this game, and we honestly don't want the balance team spending any time balancing the game for the lower end of the skill spectrum (we really don't). And we don't doubt that at high levels of skill, the game is fairly well balanced. But we just thought we'd throw our experiences out there anyway and see what comments come our way.

What say you?

You're entirely right Mr. Newbros, Eldar and Tyranids are op af and we should take immediate action to nerf them. I'm glad to see that fresh eyes see what has been plainly obvious to me since before I even owned a computer. It is an innate, instinctual knowledge that has informed everything I know about game balance

Anyway, to more seriously answer your question and keep it short; For Orks, Looted Tanks are probably the worst tanks for AV and while they'll do ok, their more notable traits are in their anti-infantry. I would suggest trying Tankbustas, perhaps some AV wargear on your heroes or even Nobs depending on what type of carnifex.

Ordo Malleus can do Interceptors or Paladins with a dash of Psilencer Purgations or Lascannon Rhinos. Keep in mind that for Psilencers to do AV, you need to make sure to use the "Rending" skill.

@Banshees

Again, depends on race and what hero the eldar is playing and what you are playing. Let's just presume WLock since he's usually the most uber-aggressive with shees. Speaking in such a generality, you have basically 3 options -as much crowd control as you can, as much disruption as you can or as much dakka as you can. At low levels, you'll typically see these units blobbed up, so something like 2 shotgun scouts and a dev, 2 tics and havocs, even disruption like jump teams or kback works. Massive dakka like 3x shootas with some bug shootas or tons of gm and hwt also work.

The point is to get a ton of w/e you want to do. Since shees are high damage but low health, the less time they spend on their feet swinging their op swords the better.

We like this game and community.

Lol, you guys really are new. Give it time.

Well it is clear that a game cannot be balanced around all levels of play.

Wraith Guards for instance,

at low levels of play, you blob your army together and when they shoot your army everything just splatters into a pool of blood and you'll say Wraithguard OP!

At mid levels of play, you will disperse your army and always let your hero run straight at them to tie them up. Thus they shoot at most one volley at your army and then they are out of the battle and the Eldar player says Wraithguard UP!

At mid-high levels of play, the Eldar player will know that you will try something like that and be ready to pop an ability that prevents you from tying them up like Gravity Blade, Entangling Web or Warp Throw and you'll say Wraithguard OP!

At high levels of play, you could anticipate that the Eldar hero will use such an ability by looking at his wargear and prevent him of doing so by using stun, knockback, focus fire, whatever. So here it really depends on who outplays whom so you could maybe say that Wraithguards are balanced?

You're entirely right Mr. Newbros, Eldar and Tyranids are op af and we should take immediate action to nerf them. I'm glad to see that fresh eyes see what has been plainly obvious to me since before I even owned a computer. It is an innate, instinctual knowledge that has informed everything I know about game balance

Ha, glad we agree on totally obvious things

To be more serious, the crux of the biscuit seems to revolve around things that are way easier to pull off than to counter or deal with... AT OUR LEVEL.

A few findings:

1) Races with T1 melee units (mostly eldar and tyranids, but orks too) have the advantage against the other races (especially IG) AT OUR LEVEL because it is easier to just spam melee and a-move at stuff than it is to deal with it on the other side.

For instance, against banshees as any other race, I even built 3 set-up teams once, and tried to face them in the obvious directions he would come from. He simply came in from the one uncovered direction. I was like... "should I have built 4?" The other thing is that you can easily get caught in transit with the setup and tear-down times on those things. Basically, on my end I have to do a hell of a lot more thought, scouting, clicking, micro, time, energy, etc. managing setup teams than he does picking his nose with one hand while mashing a-move with a blob of melee on his end. If I don't do everything perfect on every engagement, I lose my army. If he doesn't, he just retreats and tries again.

Against tyranids, not only can they just a-move melee at you, but barbed stranger warriors will simply waltz into the kill zone of your set-up team, get a shot off, then your setup team is dead. And burrow strike too, of course.

2) Races who have 'nuanced' ways of dealing with armor (meaning, no 'obvious hard counter') are at a disadvantage against races who have powerful armored units... AT OUR LEVEL.

By the way, Khaine's brilliantly burning balls be damned, have you seen the damage that a venom cannon carnifex does to a tank with its special ability? We were convinced it was something that was bugged-out, but we can consistently do that damage every time. Seems way OP at our level that one of those things can jizz out a blob of plasma or whatever that takes 50%-75% health off a tank, but it is what it is.

Again, we don't recommending balancing around the lower leagues, especially if that would compromise balance anywhere else. We are just giving thoughts.

Perhaps you can get a mid/high-skill person to play a match against you or the other with him using a race of your choosing. It'll end in a landslide victory for him no doubt, but then you'd have a replay to analyze and find what he did in such case, since even if you watch Indrid's replays it's generally mid/high skill levels on both sides, so you won't be finding what to do vs unused build orders.

Deflaktor wrote:At mid levels of play, you will disperse your army and always let your hero run straight at them to tie them up. Thus they shoot at most one volley at your army and then they are out of the battle and the Eldar player says Wraithguard UP!

What happens to me vs my noob buddy (and he did this the first time he ever played Eldar) is, I run my hero up there to tie up the wraithguard. He has a wraithlord standing there protecting it, plus a bunch of banshees, his hero, etc. Nothing gets close. Everything dies. If there's two or three wraithguard, everything dies even faster.

So here it really depends on who outplays whom so you could maybe say that Wraithguards are balanced?

We don't doubt that, at high level.

guymandude wrote:What happens to me vs my noob buddy (and he did this the first time he ever played Eldar) is, I run my hero up there to tie up the wraithguard. He has a wraithlord standing there protecting it, plus a bunch of banshees, his hero, etc. Nothing gets close. Everything dies. If there's two or three wraithguard, everything dies even faster.

I could be mistaken here, but it sounds like the opponent is at a massive resource advantage if you're letting him get out multiple Wraithguard and a Wraithlord on top of spamming a large number of Banshees. How large is your army usually by that point?

As for the setup vs melee debate, one setup team is pretty much a counter to numerous melee squads if they just a-move as you said. You use that word a lot, but it sounds more like the opponent is actively making attempts to circumvent your defenses rather than just attacking head on. Countering their flanking and maneuvering relies on your ability to scout them, which can either be easy or challenging depending on your faction.

What race do you usually play? It's far easier to give feedback when we know what style you normally go for.

Kvn wrote:As for the setup vs melee debate, one setup team is pretty much a counter to numerous melee squads...

I no longer build them, except purely to upgrade to anti-armor. They haven't worked, ever, a single time. Whether this is due to him having map hacks, whether he is just lucky, or whatever else, the setup teams have never done anything except waste money and get themselves plus everything that relies on them killed.

What race do you usually play? It's far easier to give feedback when we know what style you normally go for.

Essentially I play all races, except I've never played vanilla space marines (just doesn't appeal to me), and we've banned Eldar from our play. We are close to banning Tyranids from our play as well. I've probably played the most with Tyranids, Chaos, and Imperial Guard.

Since banning Eldar, his Tyranids have given me the most trouble, as he can get a huge blob of stuff and just run at me. Can't keep his hormagaunts off my stuff. Tyrant Guard is unkillable unless focus fired by 3 upgraded CSM squads with Mark of Tzeentch (I can rarely pull that off because he'll just a-move a blob of stuff at the CSMs), and if he ever gets even one Carnifex, it's good game right there.

guymandude wrote:Essentially I play all races, except I've never played vanilla space marines (just doesn't appeal to me), and we've banned Eldar from our play. We are close to banning Tyranids from our play as well. I've probably played the most with Tyranids, Chaos, and Imperial Guard.

If you ban them, you will never get a chance to learn how to beat them (they are extremely beatable) and will remain in the scrub zone much longer.

Maybe post a replay of your game so we can give you specific advice?