Whee Winter Assault is here!

Star-Blighter · Post by **Star-Blighter** » 2005-10-04 04:29am

People need to stop assuming that WA has anything to do with the TT game. WA has the WH40K name and the look of the armies and that is IT. You might as well be comparing the TT game to Ground Control as far as gameplay, unit behavior, and strats are concerned.

AP, strength, and wounds are all absolutely meaningless and have no business being involved with WA.

WA and TT are like apples to pork-chops.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-10-04 04:39am

Star-Blighter wrote:People need to stop assuming that WA has anything to do with the TT game. WA has the WH40K name and the look of the armies and that is IT. You might as well be comparing the TT game to Ground Control as far as gameplay, unit behavior, and strats are concerned.

AP, strength, and wounds are all absolutely meaningless and have no business being involved with WA.

WA and TT are like apples to pork-chops.

That argument might have some validity if it was, in fact, Ground Control, not Warhammer 40,000. Yes, they are different media and use vastly different mechanics, but both of those systems are abstractions based on the same background material. There should be some parity between the two, it's called continuity and it's a good thing. No one here is advocating we put in the TT statline of S, T, BS, WS, I, W, etc. No one is suggesting that Guardsmen should have a precisely 50% chance of hitting and 33.3% chance of wounding a Space Marine.

The fact of the matter is that WA has a truckload to do with the TT game, because it's the same damn game, just a different interpretation thereof. A Guardsman should still get annihilated by a bolter round and a Space Marine should still Know No Fear.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-10-04 07:29am

I swear the frikkin computer cheats. Me and my housemates were playing a 3v3, us as IG vs marines and the computer had a load of troops massed together. I used the assassins scope to see them and then got a Basilisk to drop an earthshaker on them, but as soon as i deployed the earthshaker they all moved. They did this 3 times!

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2005-10-04 09:01am

2000AD wrote:I swear the frikkin computer cheats. Me and my housemates were playing a 3v3, us as IG vs marines and the computer had a load of troops massed together. I used the assassins scope to see them and then got a Basilisk to drop an earthshaker on them, but as soon as i deployed the earthshaker they all moved. They did this 3 times!

erm, the red smoke cloud you see when you order an earthshaker strike is visible to all players, regardless of team.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-10-04 09:27am

Matt Huang wrote:
2000AD wrote:I swear the frikkin computer cheats. Me and my housemates were playing a 3v3, us as IG vs marines and the computer had a load of troops massed together. I used the assassins scope to see them and then got a Basilisk to drop an earthshaker on them, but as soon as i deployed the earthshaker they all moved. They did this 3 times!
erm, the red smoke cloud you see when you order an earthshaker strike is visible to all players, regardless of team.

It is? Well whats the point in that?

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2005-10-04 09:36am

2000AD wrote:
Matt Huang wrote:
2000AD wrote:I swear the frikkin computer cheats. Me and my housemates were playing a 3v3, us as IG vs marines and the computer had a load of troops massed together. I used the assassins scope to see them and then got a Basilisk to drop an earthshaker on them, but as soon as i deployed the earthshaker they all moved. They did this 3 times!
erm, the red smoke cloud you see when you order an earthshaker strike is visible to all players, regardless of team.
It is? Well whats the point in that?

well, your basilisks need something to mark where their target is. They can't rely on satellite imagry everywhere.

Which is why I usually save earthshakers for base & bunker bombardments, and pile em on top of eachother.

Guy thinks that he'll be ok because it's just one earthshaker strike against his buildings, then whammo, it's all gone and he needs to rebuild something expensive like his orbital relay or mars pattern.

Star-Blighter · Post by **Star-Blighter** » 2005-10-04 10:09am

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:
Star-Blighter wrote:People need to stop assuming that WA has anything to do with the TT game. WA has the WH40K name and the look of the armies and that is IT. You might as well be comparing the TT game to Ground Control as far as gameplay, unit behavior, and strats are concerned.

AP, strength, and wounds are all absolutely meaningless and have no business being involved with WA.

WA and TT are like apples to pork-chops.
That argument might have some validity if it was, in fact, Ground Control, not Warhammer 40,000. Yes, they are different media and use vastly different mechanics, but both of those systems are abstractions based on the same background material. There should be some parity between the two, it's called continuity and it's a good thing. No one here is advocating we put in the TT statline of S, T, BS, WS, I, W, etc. No one is suggesting that Guardsmen should have a precisely 50% chance of hitting and 33.3% chance of wounding a Space Marine.

The fact of the matter is that WA has a truckload to do with the TT game, because it's the same damn game, just a different interpretation thereof. A Guardsman should still get annihilated by a bolter round and a Space Marine should still Know No Fear.

There in lies your mistake. WA has absolutely nothing at all to do with the TT game. IG doesn't get heavy weapon squads for anti-tank while sentinals are actually the only anti-tank the guard get before tier 3 (sents are usually used against infantry in TT).

Your are correct in that WA is an abstraction of the 40K universe. However the gameplay has no parity what so ever with TT and never will (which is why IG doesn't have to outnumber SM in order to stomp them into the dirt, and priests can go into cc with orks and actually fubar them, lascannons shreding tanks but taking several hits just to kill a damned cultist, ect...).

Relic is the only governing factor in the balancing of the units and structuring the gameplay and MANY of their decisions don't take TT rules into account at all (kind of why in ver 1.3 the ladder was dominated by Eldar players almost exclusively).

Your trying to make a pointless arguement here. The gameplay is the CORE of DOW/WA and the TT game has no bearing on that in the least.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-10-04 12:43pm

mind you I have fun with heavy weapons and invulnerabile enemies. namely keeping an enemy that can't be hurt trapped in one location because of explosions.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-10-04 02:27pm

Stark wrote:I've played some pretty large (although short) games as IG, and their standard idiots remained useful as APC-mounted grenade launcher spammers right till the endgame. After reading all the 'IG players will have to hide until they get decent units' stuff on the web, I expected TT-standard IG, and not IG that are so effective. Baneblades are ludicrous and not particularly hard to get (so long as you bash out piles and piles of generators, anyway), Basilisks are cheap, and enough grenades and even the SM run away.

I was expecting large squads of pretty useless guys backed up with slow weapons teams and armour. I have yet to get charged by heaps of melee units, so maybe the Banshees/Nobz/Possessed will change my view, but right now I see the IG as at most SLIGHTLY disadvantaged at low end (no melee, nor AT inf) and with an excellent selection of excellent units in the late game.

Chaos chews up IG and spits 'em out; when the comps are Chaos armies, my Guard gets assraped at a much lower AI difficulty than against the other races. Orks tend to hurt a lot too; the Guard has no melee capability besides the Command Squad before 3rd tier; none.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-10-04 04:58pm

that's what the command squad is there for

engage the enemy, now watch everyone go a bouncing due to theose grenadiers. bouncy enemies, are not engaging us direftly, run for the damn bunkers you fools when things get dicey

Losonti Tokash · Post by **Losonti Tokash** » 2005-10-04 05:03pm

Matt Huang wrote:
Losonti Tokash wrote:
Stark wrote:I'm glad I've never seen a game run long enough to use the Avatar!
Be glad. I rarely saw it in the original, but now the Avatar is flaming death. One game I was playing, I had easily a dozen squads of IG infantry, a bunch of Leman Russes, a Baneblade, basilisks and an unholy number of turrets and the Avatar just rolled over them all and proceeded to burn down my base.
Just an Avatar??? You lost your entire army to an Avatar??? Including a Baneblade???

What did you do, send em out piecemeal and leave em alone for the Avatar to chew up?

Nah, he came right up to them while I was assembling to wipe them out. He had some support but that got killed right quick and all the rest of my troops just kinda died horribly.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-10-04 05:36pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Chaos chews up IG and spits 'em out; when the comps are Chaos armies, my Guard gets assraped at a much lower AI difficulty than against the other races. Orks tend to hurt a lot too; the Guard has no melee capability besides the Command Squad before 3rd tier; none.

Yeah, I've played a decent Chaos opponent now, and their assault units (and Predators, oddly) really mess up IG infantry and even armour. I actually LOST a Baneblade while I was organsing reinforcements - 5 LR and a Baneblade destroyed by hordes and hordes and hordes of Possessed and Horrors. Ugh.

And Chaos Preds are surprisingly powerful, particularly vs IG tanks.

@Star Blighter - I'm not interested in TT/PC comparisons, but Relics own statements about the expansion. The IG were described as hamstung with no effective units early game, and this is just bullshit. I can play IG pretty much the same way I play everyone else bar Chaos, except with more tanks. That isn't the impression I got from Relics announced intentions, so it surprised me. The fact that its crap doesn't enter into it.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2005-10-04 06:05pm

Chaos Preds have an upgrade (Chaos Projectiles) that makes their bolters effective against vehicles and structures.

Star-Blighter · Post by **Star-Blighter** » 2005-10-05 10:00am

Stark wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:Chaos chews up IG and spits 'em out; when the comps are Chaos armies, my Guard gets assraped at a much lower AI difficulty than against the other races. Orks tend to hurt a lot too; the Guard has no melee capability besides the Command Squad before 3rd tier; none.
Yeah, I've played a decent Chaos opponent now, and their assault units (and Predators, oddly) really mess up IG infantry and even armour. I actually LOST a Baneblade while I was organsing reinforcements - 5 LR and a Baneblade destroyed by hordes and hordes and hordes of Possessed and Horrors. Ugh.

And Chaos Preds are surprisingly powerful, particularly vs IG tanks.

@Star Blighter - I'm not interested in TT/PC comparisons, but Relics own statements about the expansion. The IG were described as hamstung with no effective units early game, and this is just bullshit. I can play IG pretty much the same way I play everyone else bar Chaos, except with more tanks. That isn't the impression I got from Relics announced intentions, so it surprised me. The fact that its crap doesn't enter into it.

Very true. I really did want the IG to play more like in TT and when DOW was still coming out all I could think of was how cool it would be to have an RTS of the TT game. Of course Relic had other plans, but for a 40k game I am very satisifed with the results (we could of ended up with another Firewarrior).

I may have been overzealous in stating the differences between WA and TT. On the Relic boards I've had to deal with alot of idiots who tried to post strategies based exclusively on TT rules for IG and they would completely ignore any attempt to reason with them and explain how different the games are.

I apologize if I was being rude.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-10-05 06:58pm

Scool. Now that I've been using IG for a while, everyone I play against whips out the melee units/leaders early on and totally rapes me. IG have a very hard time on small maps, where they don't get enough time to get to tier 2.

Stupid RTS conventions. 'Upgrade HQ' indeed.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2005-10-05 10:48pm

From everything I've read on the Relicforums, Orks are the best race, and then it's IG. Then Chaos, then SM, then Eldar.

You have to put those commissars on those guardsmen. And a Priest or two won't hurt.

And Hellhounds rock.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-10-05 11:36pm

Hellhounds do rock. I got my base completely wiped out on Kasyr Lutien once by a horde of Chaos Marines. I got two squads of IG out of the carnage to the safety of a neighboring allied base, where I'd built a Mechanized Command, and managed to upgrade to a Hellhound Depot before my Battle Command went down. Built three Hellhounds, and then went to town. Two squads of Guardsmen drove half a dozen squads of Chaos Marines before them, with the Hellhounds coming behind and streaming on fire to keep 'em broken.

Took my base location back, wiped out that comp's entire initial force, held the bridge while rebuilding, and went on to win the game.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-10-06 04:55am

As far as i've found the key to IG is to turtle. Build tactical commands near the front of your base and use them as bunkers. Stick a couple of turrets near by and just turtle until you can get hellhounds. Hell hounds can push back the infantry enemy and then you can start expanding and producing your attack force.

Laughing Mechanicus · Post by **Laughing Mechanicus** » 2005-10-06 06:37am

The thing that always seems to get me when playing IG against a hard computer player (Chaos usually), is I can build about 3 Guardsmen squads and get them fully upgraded with commisars and just head for vehicles quickly or I can make about 6 fully upgraded Guardsmen squads and get to vehicles a little slower.

In either case however very shortly after I get vehicles (if I built 6 squads its basically as soon as I get my vehicle depot, if I built 3 then its after I've managed to build a couple of sentinals) the enemy will turn up with 5 or 6 Preds and a legion of infantry, half of them Chaos Marines and the other half Berserkers and my force just gets routed.

I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, I usually take a little over 50% of the maps control points early on, so I'm not losing out in resources. I could most certainly churn out even more Guardsmen, but then they would just get massacred by Predators.

Star-Blighter · Post by **Star-Blighter** » 2005-10-06 10:08am

2000AD wrote:As far as i've found the key to IG is to turtle. Build tactical commands near the front of your base and use them as bunkers. Stick a couple of turrets near by and just turtle until you can get hellhounds. Hell hounds can push back the infantry enemy and then you can start expanding and producing your attack force.

IG still need to take ground just like the other races but their LPs and Infantry Com is very good at letting them dig in for the next big push. WA is all about aggression and sitting and teching to tier 3 is not the way to do it.

When vehicles start to come and your at tier 2, your vehicle pop will consist almost exclusively of Sentinals for AV.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-10-07 07:20am

Me and my housemate played a 2v3 agains tthe com on Kasyr Luten, us as IG and first against Orks (Hard) and then against CHaos (Harder).

All the computer did was build a barracks and keep pumping out infantry to send at us, even though we had a solid defence built up. Eventually we got tanks and then a baneblade each and just rolled through them, but right up to the end they just kept on building infantry.

Is this just against IG? Just on Kasyr Luten? Will it change if we play on Insane?

Star-Blighter · Post by **Star-Blighter** » 2005-10-07 07:35am

2000AD wrote:Me and my housemate played a 2v3 agains tthe com on Kasyr Luten, us as IG and first against Orks (Hard) and then against CHaos (Harder).

All the computer did was build a barracks and keep pumping out infantry to send at us, even though we had a solid defence built up. Eventually we got tanks and then a baneblade each and just rolled through them, but right up to the end they just kept on building infantry.

Is this just against IG? Just on Kasyr Luten? Will it change if we play on Insane?

Insane only provides the computer with a resource advantage. I'd only use it if I were a masochist.

And while WA has provided many AI improvements, it is still dumb as bricks.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2005-10-07 09:24am

wholey crap, Warp Spiders are now effective against heavy infantry???

They specifically removed the customization options for different vehicles to give each one a niche, but then totally remove any reason to go build Reapers.

Consider:
Spiders do more damage
Spiders don't have a setup-time for their guns
Spiders have more health (as a squad)
Spiders get upgrades that make em effective against vehicles. (I've been experimenting in skirmish vs AI and crap, I've had Spiders taking out Chaos Predators.)
Spiders get to teleport.

The only thing the Reapers have going for em is a longer firing range.

Star-Blighter · Post by **Star-Blighter** » 2005-10-07 10:10am

Matt Huang wrote:wholey crap, Warp Spiders are now effective against heavy infantry???

They specifically removed the customization options for different vehicles to give each one a niche, but then totally remove any reason to go build Reapers.

Consider:
Spiders do more damage
Spiders don't have a setup-time for their guns
Spiders have more health (as a squad)
Spiders get upgrades that make em effective against vehicles. (I've been experimenting in skirmish vs AI and crap, I've had Spiders taking out Chaos Predators.)
Spiders get to teleport.

The only thing the Reapers have going for em is a longer firing range.

Reapers come before Warpspiders are available. Thats why they are used.

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2005-10-07 03:41pm

I love this game, I do, I do, I do, and here is three reasons why:

and the fact that the Sturrn model at the start up screen is the same as the in game one just does it for me since it's an RTS. *moans and keels over*