Dawn of War Codex

Hey all, I was wondering if people could provide me with some tips. I have got no idea how you are supposed to beat double or triple snipers as Eldar. DA shields prevent them from hurting set-up teams etc, but if they get ASM the set-up team can just be jumped and the energy shield destroyed. Double or triple Rangers is such a resource sink compared to the equivalent number of scout snipers that getting out-teched becomes a real issue, especially since getting Pathfinder Gear is a necessity against double/triple snipers. It also forces you to play static and build shields everywhere, because it's risky to go running around in the open where the snipers can decimate all your units, but this obviously costs your a great deal of map control. Rushing to T2 also doesn't seem to be very viable, because you will have bled quite a lot from the snipers and in order to stay even remotely on-par with your opponent in T1 you will have had to spend more resources than him/her. And then upon arriving in T2 a quick vehicle isn't as viable a strategy for Eldar, because their cheapest vehicle is the Falcon, which is quite expensive, and can be dealt with quite easily by missile Tacs and ASM. Not only this but there is a very high probability that your opponent will have out-teched you and gotten a Dreadnought out relatively quickly. Then the issues start up again, Brightlance countered by snipers; shielded Brightlance countered by ASM etc. Basically, how on Earth do you deal with this?

scout snipers cost almost as twice power as the rangers + pathfinder gear to be able to field the same stuff, and that is infiltration + detection, they also have less sight range aswell as for each shot the snipers can fire, and so take down 1 ranger model you can fire twice and that means 2 scout kills.

Sniper scouts are PURE SUICIDE vs rangers, there is never, ever a reason to get them in the MU, and what you want to do as eldar if you spot double or triple snipers is to get 2 rangers of your own, and those will beat 2 & 3 scout snipers no matter what.

For the rest the strategy is extremely simple, keep your shees on the back and have on the frontlines rangers hunting for scouts, force them off easily, then start getting shots on ASMs (really if he the sm has spent 135 power on 2 snipers + 1 sarge for detection and asm you should have a Wraithlord or Falcon out before he even hits the t2 button) and once the ASM move in, they will be already weakened, even 1 shot on them is deadly, simply proceed to move in shees and brutally rape them.

Double rangers should win out in sniper battles. Just keep them infiltrated and have them fire first. I believe they have a higher rate of fire.

Rangers have waaaayyyy higher rate of fire (one shot every 7,5 seconds compared to one shot every 12 seconds), larger sight and detection radius and longer range. So Rangers are way more cost effective here. Shees will deal with ASM as you can use ranger kb to delay the support. You can use doom + guide, mind war + nades, support with witchblade, gravity blade. heavy gay deathluler or use entangle/anti-grav (I know, T2) + nades to deal with asm. He should spend more power on his snipers than you and he should bleed more models also. So you should be easily able to invest on shees and/or some wargear.

Thanks for the tips, guys. I wish I'd saved some replays where this build beat me, but I didn't next time I play a game against snipers I might save it and put it up here. But I will try using 2 Rangers and post here again with the results/questions etc. Cheers all.

As a general thumb rule go for Rangers first and the shuri afterwards when you see your opponent has 2 or more scouts.

Go for rangers vs SM if you don't want to lose
fixed your sentence

What ace said. Going snipers vs eldar is complete suicide. Try playing against snipers as the WB/PC.

Also throwing in a vote for more countersnipers or your own. If we're talking strictly sniper vs sniper I don't think rate of fire is that big of a deal since I doubt either side will stay in range long enough for a second shot.

After that, it pretty much army vs army. I feel like these kind of fights rely much more so on player skill since you can punish your opponent much harder with so much alpha damage on the field.

The fire rate matters a lot! And in my opinion is actually way to fast for rangers.

Snipers vs PC/WB and to Sent-based IG can be an auto-win.

Snipers vs Eldar is suicide. They have better snipers lol.

I would imagine the bait and trap trick would be quite useful with double rangers and banshees. Given ASM try to jump your setup team, you have at least two sources of kinetic pulse (assuming you only go with 2 squads), and the ability to cloak your banshees. ASM jump your setup team, you use the first sniper squad to knock them back and allow your setup team to move to safety. Move in banshees and have them mess the ASM as they reform. At this point, asm have to consider several options which is to over commit and jump the set up team once again, which has hopefully been set up at this point, or to jump back to safety. Most players would probably do the latter unless they've got something to follow up those asm, but you should be good in that regard. As eldar, you should have multiple ways of counter initiating those asm, especially if you play a commander like Farseer.

Atlas wrote:Also throwing in a vote for more countersnipers or your own. If we're talking strictly sniper vs sniper I don't think rate of fire is that big of a deal since I doubt either side will stay in range long enough for a second shot.

After that, it pretty much army vs army. I feel like these kind of fights rely much more so on player skill since you can punish your opponent much harder with so much alpha damage on the field.

DPS is calculated by the number of hits a unit's able to get off. Without looking at the statistics for damage , I'm going to assume that both scouts and rangers hit for roughly the same amount. Thus if you can fire 2 shots off at the same time a single scout will fire one, then comparatively, your single unit of rangers is much more efficient. Rate of fire is a big deal, hence why you see emphasis on attack speed in other like minded games.

And I also second the notion that ranger attack speed is ridiculously fast considering.

Commissar Vocaloid wrote:I would imagine the bait and trap trick would be quite useful with double rangers and banshees. Given ASM try to jump your setup team, you have at least two sources of kinetic pulse (assuming you only go with 2 squads), and the ability to cloak your banshees. ASM jump your setup team, you use the first sniper squad to knock them back and allow your setup team to move to safety. Move in banshees and have them mess the ASM as they reform. At this point, asm have to consider several options which is to over commit and jump the set up team once again, which has hopefully been set up at this point, or to jump back to safety. Most players would probably do the latter unless they've got something to follow up those asm, but you should be good in that regard. As eldar, you should have multiple ways of counter initiating those asm, especially if you play a commander like Farseer.

The issue isn't necessarily counter-initiating the ASM, it's the snipers bleeding the shuirken/shees when they try to fight the ASM, which opens the door up to ASM getting free reign, at least in T1.

Regardless, this is a game I played against Tex yesterday. There were a lot of misplays on my part in terms of forgetting about units, not using holo-field etc. But in my defence it was about half past four in the morning and I was having trouble staying awake. But yeah, any further tips etc would be appreciated. The Falcon was also a mistake.

Rangers do 160 per shot and Snipers do 170 per hit. That doesn't really matter in this context since both units will die to either shot in one shot.

I understand what people are saying when comparing rate of fire between the two, but what I'm getting at is if it's just two snipers vs two rangers (because he said "snipers") and assuming neither is shooting at anything else (which is a different discussion) then that means after one exchange of shots, two scouts and two rangers would be dead. Since both squads have three members (with the exception of the sergeant but again, different scenario) that means with focus fire, there will be a three member and a one member squad on each side.

Considering both players don't like using expensive squads, those 1 member squads are either going to retreat or do just about anything to stay out of firing range. At that point, it's safe to assume that neither player is going to keep both snipers in for another round and risk losing an entire squad.

That's why I'm saying that when comparing snipers rate of fire isn't that big of a deal. Snipers are known for their alpha damage, not their DPS. The reason Rangers are a good choice when dealing with enemy snipers is because in addition with countersniping duties they also contribute to your army more than enemy scout snipers.

Well I would keep the rangers around long enough to fire another round since they can do it almost 5 seconds before the sniper scouts can shoot again... Provided I can keep track of the single scout with farsight or something or they stay in your field of vision.

My god, this pisses me off so much, it's not something you learn with 3000 hours of playing dow, it's freaking basic logic.

you have 1 sniper squad and you have 1 ranger squad.

The scout snipers to fire 3 times will take 24 seconds (setup - first shot, 12 sec pause - shot - 12 sec pause - shot).

Rangers fire every 7,5 seconds which means they will take 15 seconds to fire 3 times and take out the whole sniper squad. (setup - first shot, 7.5 sec pause - shot - 7,5 sec pause - shot).

Plus they have more sight range so they will get the first shot in.

And if you are implying that with 1 squad will die before firing again, in the ranger's case you are really really wrong, their 10 power infiltration + sight range plays again a huge factor in their favor and with some really basic micro you will never lose rangers to scout snipers, arguabily 1 extremely well microed ranger squad could take out a fully upgraded 4models sniper scout alone.

Their long rifles also have more range with pathfinder gear than snipr0 scouts. In case somebody didn't know.

And since they have more ranged+sight radius with pathfinding, once you infiltrate them and get the first shot off the scouts can't do shit since they don't have the range to/ight to instantly fire back and if they go looking for you they can't find you since you're invisible and the detection range is way smaller than the ranger's long rifle/sight range.

Rangers butcher scouts. Not just 1v1 either, but in every way. They provide way better fire support vs everything else due to the higher RoF and then they have kinetic pulse and holo-field which are both just amazing.

Scout snipers used correctly rape eldar.

Doesn't matter which hero. Apo does it best ofc.

Don't believe? Come then.

Tex wrote:Scout snipers used correctly rape eldar.

Doesn't matter which hero. Apo does it best ofc.

Don't believe? Come then.

I don't. Infact I think the exact opposite.

However I only ever see like 1 Eldar main these days, so my POV of them is skewed.

Don't believe? Give me a holler and I'll give Holy a kick so you can see.

Nurland wrote:Their long rifles also have more range with pathfinder gear than snipr0 scouts. In case somebody didn't know.

Ah yeah, you're right. The upgrade adds +10, though only +5 effective range without support since they only have a sight range of 60. I can't find it in the Codex, but I think for detection 30 is the standard right? In that case, sniper scouts without elite training would essentially shoot second every exchange.

At that point, you're still swapping shots and trading 50/5 models for 35/6 models unless the Eldar just outplays. But this discussion is pointless!

We're saying that Scout Snipers are a pain in the ass if you're playing Eldar because they're fast little f*ckers that like to one shot 40/0 banshee models, outrange your setup teams and Eldar has no T1 jump team to tie them up. They also like to cap like every point in the map when you're not fighting. How do we deal with this?

Rangers are helpful NOT because they just roflstomp snipers (which is debatable), but because they force your opponent to be a lot more careful with their snipers AND they can support the army more than that 170 piercing shot every 12 seconds does. DPS is not important with snipers, but the targets their alpha kills is.

[quote=Raffa]I don't. Infact I think the exact opposite.

However I only ever see like 1 Eldar main these days, so my POV of them is skewed.

Don't believe? Give me a holler and I'll give Holy a kick so you can see.[/quote]

I side with Tex on this one because I saw him go vs Noisy a couple times and Noisy made dem snipes like OP. Man, I wish I had those replays still but le sigh, reinstall :<

Lt. Ekul wrote:

Commissar Vocaloid wrote:I would imagine the bait and trap trick would be quite useful with double rangers and banshees. Given ASM try to jump your setup team, you have at least two sources of kinetic pulse (assuming you only go with 2 squads), and the ability to cloak your banshees. ASM jump your setup team, you use the first sniper squad to knock them back and allow your setup team to move to safety. Move in banshees and have them mess the ASM as they reform. At this point, asm have to consider several options which is to over commit and jump the set up team once again, which has hopefully been set up at this point, or to jump back to safety. Most players would probably do the latter unless they've got something to follow up those asm, but you should be good in that regard. As eldar, you should have multiple ways of counter initiating those asm, especially if you play a commander like Farseer.

The issue isn't necessarily counter-initiating the ASM, it's the snipers bleeding the shuirken/shees when they try to fight the ASM, which opens the door up to ASM getting free reign, at least in T1.

Regardless, this is a game I played against Tex yesterday. There were a lot of misplays on my part in terms of forgetting about units, not using holo-field etc. But in my defence it was about half past four in the morning and I was having trouble staying awake. But yeah, any further tips etc would be appreciated. The Falcon was also a mistake.

Just curious - were the scouts infiltrated themselves as well?

Raffa wrote:

Tex wrote:Scout snipers used correctly rape eldar.

Doesn't matter which hero. Apo does it best ofc.

Don't believe? Come then.

I don't. Infact I think the exact opposite.

However I only ever see like 1 Eldar main these days, so my POV of them is skewed.

Don't believe? Give me a holler and I'll give Holy a kick so you can see.

Heh, I already put his eldar to the test (Sternguard ultimately were his undoing). Going strait for snipers against his build would ultimately be dumb because he goes strait for 2x rangers almost all the time. He opens himself up to early genbash by doing this build.
The whole concept of SM snipers raping eldar follows this line of logic:
1) Eldar most often depend on a 30 power purchase for their 3rd and 4th squads. If they purchase a GU or Shuri for their 3rd squad, they open themselves up to sniper rape.
2) All Eldar heroes can get little to nothing done against SM (especially tacs) before investing in upgrades.
3) SM can march on eldar power as soon as the 15 power mark is hit.
4) Even if the first ranger squad comes out before/during pressure on power, SM can still stick it out and destroy gen farm with minimal losses because a single ranger offers no method of controlling tacs or heroes.
5) Even if 2nd ranger comes out, eldar player will still have no control over your hero.

etc etc you get the idea

Yeah, so it's not like scout snipers counter rangers. It's just SM counter eldar. Hasn't that been said for ages now though?

Yeah I don't think anyone ever said scout snipers counter rangers... Or if they did, its just simply not true.

Well, I think the point was "how do eldar deal with snipers" and the answer is rangers, because rangers own scout snipers. What makes scout snipers so badass from a more holistic perspective (and why they definitely should not be as good as rangers) are three things:

1) Scouts themselves have negligible sunk costs to get on the field. You start with one scout squad and another is dirt cheap. This is important because it's key to scout flexibility. They're useful with no upgrades purely for map control. With shotguns they own unupgraded ranged squads and upgraded melee squads. With snipers they own set-up teams and expensive ranged squads - tacs/csm etc. So scouts are a pest because they're useful no matter what the opponent does with them and since they're so cheap and useful when unupgraded he can afford to have 2 or more running about while waiting to see what build you go for and then just counter it instantly with scout upgrades and asm or devs, or both!

2) ASM are a thing. They control everything. You can use ASM to absord ranger shots and jump the rangers, get some sniper shots off on rangers, force them off while retreating the ASM, now shees are vulnerable to sniper scouts/tacs since the rangers are gone. ASM are just beastly. They don't bleed and they allow the SM to bleed the foe a lot.

3) SM heroes are awesome by default. The dps of the apothecary/force commander's starting bolt pistol is great - 12dps, that's a lot and you can bleed your foe a lot with that. Obviously battlecry is hugely influential all throughout the game - as is the heal, much more so than something like destructor or even guide (remember the abundance of kb that SM has makes a heal far better than a defensive buff would ever be). The TM is so strong early on it's crazy. His bleed potential man, especially when you factor in how tacs are just a beefier techmarine.

Tex wrote:Scout snipers used correctly rape eldar.

Doesn't matter which hero. Apo does it best ofc.

Don't believe? Come then.

Nobody believes you. Scout snipers can't be used correctly against Eldar. Only when the Elderp player is dumb and doesn't go for the more effective, obvious rangers that you should have anyway in the SM MU.

Atlas wrote:I can't find it in the Codex, but I think for detection 30 is the standard right? In that case, sniper scouts without elite training would essentially shoot second every exchange.

No, their detection range is 40.
Do some research before making any balance suggestion or post.

Atlas wrote:We're saying that Scout Snipers are a pain in the ass if you're playing Eldar because they're fast little f*ckers that like to one shot 40/0 banshee models, outrange your setup teams and Eldar has no T1 jump team to tie them up. They also like to cap like every point in the map when you're not fighting. How do we deal with this?

You use rangers who are infinitely better!

Atlas wrote:Rangers are helpful NOT because they just roflstomp snipers (which is debatable),

How the hell is that even up for debate?!

Atlas wrote:but because they force your opponent to be a lot more careful with their snipers AND they can support the army more than that 170 piercing shot every 12 seconds does. DPS is not important with snipers, but the targets their alpha kills is.

No they can't support better... Rangers have a shotgunblast across the map and a faster fire rate is way better than that 10 extra dmg per shot. DPS is everything!
I can't believe what I'm reading here.

Tex wrote:3) SM can march on eldar power as soon as the 15 power mark is hit.
4) Even if the first ranger squad comes out before/during pressure on power, SM can still stick it out and destroy gen farm with minimal losses because a single ranger offers no method of controlling tacs or heroes.

No they can't, kinetics pulse on tacs, shees run in, gg.

That Torpid Gamer wrote:It's just Eldar counter SM.

Fixed for ya.


This was also not supposed to be a discussion.
This was supposed to be tips on the subject. Let us go back to doing that? Ok?

Nobody has mentioned that buying sniper kit on scout increases the reinforce cost for scouts and adds a power cost

Anyway, instead of fighting like little babies, why don't you 2 play eachother, Riku as eldar and Tex as SM then post the replays?

Because they have 1,000,000 times in the past?

It's a complicated relationship between two star-crossed lovers you see