Dawn of War Codex

A reoccurring problem I keep hearing about is the IG reliance on Sentinels in T1.
The compounding problem is that GM and Sentinels work so well in T1 you would have to be an idiot not to buy them. This however makes IG map-control suffer against other races (not vs other IG).

I've been rolling it in my head for the past few days and needed a unit that covers these criteria:

1. Must be T1

2.Single model so it doesn't cause extra bleed

3. Fairly tough so it can survive a bit

4. Repair Support(and this is the big one)

What I'm suggesting is that IG get Techpriest Enginseers.

Now for some Unit Stats:

Health:400
Armour: Heavy Infantry
Weapons: Power Axe(See Techmarine) and laspistol
Damage: 18 dps melee(not power melee) and 12 dps ranged
Cost: 150 req and 5 power

This would allow Sentinels and Guardsmen to work more efficiently on the battlefield and not tie the Guardsmen to the Sentinel.

Other things this would change is that IG gets a cheap capping unit and thus allow for better mapcontrol. If one Enginseer is trailing a Sentinel and the Sent decaps the Enginseer can cap.

P.S. I thought that this was a better way to suggest a unit, by tackling a problem and then try finding a way to solve it.

Sentinels are well hated and a bad design of the game to begin with, can't bleed, actually hard to kill if they are microed propely, can freaking decap and be all over the map in seconds, and can cause easy bleed to anything that are not tacts/csm and even then it keeps pumping damage on a single model.

So what Im saying is that first, sents don't need more sinergy with the rest of the IG rooster, they already provide good AV and AI, and extra melee counters when needed, plus help the map control by making your opponent waste time recapturing his own points rather than decapping/capping yours.

And because of what I've mentitioned above this game doesn't need more T1 single entities, even less on races that are supposed to bleed.

Also really? 150/5? so an IG player, which already has pretty imba repair support gets a squad that can further help with it plus it's basically a free squad that can go arond capping, let's make rippers able to cap again shall we?

Aside from the fact that IG t1 is strong, not as it was in retail but still very strong.

I like your idea and how you think, but the problem is that this will make Sentinel more obvious than the obvious choice it already is.

A single model that repairs and that's all?. I think Techpriests can be a much more interesting unit than being a 1 model GM squad.

The problem is that all the things that a Techpriest could do can be done already by guardsmen and global abilities. Building turrets, bunkers and cover, repairing... there's not much work left for a Techpriest.

WIth those stats, he could be given an ability that makes him channel at the cost of his energy while he increases the damage of turrets and vehicles, or lowers the reload times of their weapons, but theres not much left for him to do.

The only thing that really grinds my gear about the sentinal is that they can decap. Everything else I am fine with. An appropriate nerf to the IG roster would be to lower how fast a sentinal can decap a point. That would help relive economic pressure IG can put on a player.

This Techpriest upgrade would only be "balanced" if the guardsmen squad didnt get the extra two units added to the squad when he is purchased. However, late game would become a huge problem when facing IG.

Black Relic wrote:This Techpriest upgrade would only be "balanced" if the guardsmen squad didnt get the extra two units added to the squad when he is purchased. However, late game would become a huge problem when facing IG.

It would not be an addition to the GM squad but a Single Entity.

4. Repair Support(and this is the big one)

Uhm - arent Guardsmen allready the best repair unit in the game?
And Heavy Weapon teams can repair too, so, I dont think "need more repair" should be an argument for a new IG unit.

Unfortunately I disagree, though I see where you're coming from.

IG's Tier 1 is not ideal yes, but the GM/Sentinel synergy is so intrinsic to IG play that changing it significantly is really risking it. Adding more repair is just downright OP. Many IG players have put a lot of time into mastering the GM/Sent synergy too, and adding to it seems to be dumbing down the game abit.

By nature it is a race, in lore and game, that is ranged with a few melee units, therefore radically different to all the others as it's hard to have an IG army based around melee. Relic could have chosen practically any other race and it would have been better, but they were simple to make and lazily balanced.

Yes IG have problems being offensive and seizing map control, but that's compensated for by their total lack of bleed in t1 and the sentinel and catachan and all of their hero's ability to bleed their foes.

and the whole point of this squad is to be following the sentinel around everywhere? don't you have guardsmen for that already?

ChrisNihilus wrote:I like your idea and how you think, but the problem is that this will make Sentinel more obvious than the obvious choice it already is.

The idea is not to make Sents more obvious, it's to "liberate" Gaurdsmen from their repair duties and let them focus on(Destroying the Enemies of Man) being front-line infantry.


It's just a bit off when you see GM doing nothing but humping vehicles all day

Orkfaeller wrote:

4. Repair Support(and this is the big one)

Uhm - arent Guardsmen allready the best repair unit in the game?
And Heavy Weapon teams can repair too, so, I dont think "need more repair" should be an argument for a new IG unit.

GM would need to get some changes as well and best solution for that would be to give them normal repairs like other units and maybe remove HWT repair(so pointless)

Raffa wrote:Unfortunately I disagree, though I see where you're coming from.

IG's Tier 1 is not ideal yes, but the GM/Sentinel synergy is so intrinsic to IG play that changing it significantly is really risking it. Adding more repair is just downright OP. Many IG players have put a lot of time into mastering the GM/Sent synergy too, and adding to it seems to be dumbing down the game abit.

By nature it is a race, in lore and game, that is ranged with a few melee units, therefore radically different to all the others as it's hard to have an IG army based around melee. Relic could have chosen practically any other race and it would have been better, but they were simple to make and lazily balanced.

My idea would indeed shake up the IG meta but I thought that the point of this mod was to balance and create options. IG has a very specific play-style that needs the whole army to even stand a chance. This would let them split up without benig entirely helpless.

Ace of Swords wrote:
Also really? 150/5? so an IG player, which already has pretty imba repair support gets a squad that can further help with it plus it's basically a free squad that can go arond capping, let's make rippers able to cap again shall we?

Aside from the fact that IG t1 is strong, not as it was in retail but still very strong.

Numbers are subject to change and the GM/Sent synergy would need reworking(GM repair put on par with others)

Bahamut wrote:and the whole point of this squad is to be following the sentinel around everywhere? don't you have guardsmen for that already?

Pretty much this. Buy another GM squad. Maybe they will bleed, but they could also be more useful by themselves than 400 HP thing that just repairs.

Don't buff the T1 of IG, it's pretty much the best one

Barrogh wrote:

Bahamut wrote:and the whole point of this squad is to be following the sentinel around everywhere? don't you have guardsmen for that already?

Pretty much this. Buy another GM squad. Maybe they will bleed, but they could also be more useful by themselves than 400 HP thing that just repairs.

But that doesn't solve the map control issue, If you are buying a GM squad just for repairs it's just bad design. That's population that's just following a Sent around and needs you to cap even more req points to offset the new squad.

The idea here is just to give some variance to IG openings because without fail will always be some variation of GM and Sents that need to stick together to be effective.

2 GM,3 gens down into fast catas with HWT follow up or spotters + wargear, or any combination of their T1.5 is viable, but not as effective as getting a sent or 2 for that early game pressure and for early game I mean 1 min into the game, if something goes wrong for your opponent you can completely fuck up his genfarm for quite a long time and most likely win the game there, though the above mentitioned t1.5 builds might work better in some particular cases.

If anything, it's can be argued that sents might be too good, although after years of playing 3.19 everyone was already aware of their imbalances, so pretty much everyone was content enough with them losing the stomp right out of the gate.

Ace of Swords wrote:2 GM,3 gens down into fast catas with HWT follow up or spotters + wargear, or any combination of their T1.5 is viable, but not as effective as getting a sent or 2 for that early game pressure and for early game I mean 1 min into the game, if something goes wrong for your opponent you can completely fuck up his genfarm for quite a long time and most likely win the game there, though the above mentitioned t1.5 builds might work better in some particular cases.

If anything, it's can be argued that sents might be too good, although after years of playing 3.19 everyone was already aware of their imbalances, so pretty much everyone was content enough with them losing the stomp right out of the gate.

True, and I would love to hear some suggestions on how to decrease GM/Sent reliance on each other if you have any(of course without nerfing Sents into the ground)

There is none that I can think of, for the various things I've mentitioned in my original post in this thread (no bleed,can repair on field, fast, ok dps,CC etc) the sent is just too good to be replaced, and nerfing it too much would mean changing all the T1 of IG since relic cleary designed the faction around sent pressure.

And on the other hand, even making something better than the sent would make IG quite op, since like I stated there is nothing in game that can create such early pressure as a sentinel.

Maybe the solution is simply to make non-sentinel opening more credible.
No need to nerf Sentinel or give it a repair support, but just to offer a viable alternative.

That will shake the Meta a little bit for sure.

This could possibly work if you removed the bonus repair rate GM get. The IG player would have to be more cautious with the sentinel in the early game since you would need both GM squads to get the sent repaired in a reasonable amount of time, and having a personal techpriest following the sent around would make it more survivable in T2.

I don't know if it's necessary but I like the idea of techpriests returning.

And that would heavily screw up chimera/leman russ/bb synergies, making the techpriest a must purchase.

Well no one said shaking up the IG meta would be easy.

Of the three, the only one I would be concerned about is the chimera, since it has no armor upgrade and is fairly fragile for a front line vehicle. For the tanks, they have a big enough reserve of HP that IMO taking the bonus repair from GM and essentially giving it legs would be a fair tradeoff. The GM could go cap and the priest could stay and repair the tank. This would reduce the viability of midcombat repair since the priest could be picked off but honestly I've found GM outrepairing stuff like tac MLs kind of ridiculous.

Does anyone know if the leman still has damage resistance?

Yes it has, 35% I belive, but that's how it should be, IG tanks under repair can easily tank spike damage but not prolonged dps, and It's fine as it is, also GMs aren't made to go around capping, they will lose to pretty much everyone in 1v1 fights, and their strenghts is in their numbers, they can bleed while not worrying too much it and causing a bigger counter bleed, also it's all about fighting, once it's done if they won the spread out and cap, or get a new line to defend near the natural vp or power farm of the enemy, they really aren't meant to ninja cap or do that during fights, that's not how the whole race works.

Has anybody actually tested whether heroes/gm repair faster than usual starting squads?

AFAIK GM repair at the standard rate of 10 hp/sec, plus an additional bonus of +10 hp/sec that can only be applied once to the entity being repaired. So a single GM will repair a sent at 20 hp/sec, whereas two GM repairing the same sentinel will repair at 30 hp/sec. Everybody else including heroes repair at the standard rate of 10 hp/sec. I don't know where I picked this up but that's what's in my head. I've never tested it before but it feels about right. (The codex indicates the standard 10 hp/sec for GM)

Ace, I don't think the techpriest would change much of what you said regarding how IG fight (bleed, counterbleed, strength in numbers, etc.). I think the repair synergy between lemans and GM is a bit over the top thanks to the leman's damage resistance (the resistance makes repair 50% more effective essentially) but that's for another topic.

The stats are quite deliberate when it comes to the issues brought up so far. Giving GM repair "legs" and thus making it a must buy is the reason it costs so little and the heavy armor type will make it easily sniped in T2 and T3 since plasma and other damage sources become available.

My biggest grievance(like I've voiced many times) with IG T1 is that GM squad have basically reduced to glorified cog-boys, since repair is without a doubt their biggest asset, not say, their damage.

Something that would be nice is a t2 upgrade (expensive of course, along the lines of 200/50) to remove the sentinel its ability to decap and turn it into vehicle armor with either 400 hp, 500 with the stomp upgrade

Heroes have also a higher repair rate. 20hp/s IIRC and GM repair rate got nerfed to 15hp/s in Elite. Never tested the actual repair rates though. The standard repair rate is 10hp/s.