Dark Crusade impressions and thoughts

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-10-24 04:43pm

I really hate that thing. It looks silly and just feels like a discount squiggoth. I half expected the Tau to have some giant mech, or super tank, or whatever after all of the rest of their crazytech units. Not a... dinosaur?

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2006-10-24 07:00pm

well one thing holds true from table top... vespids get gunned down pretty damn quick.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-24 08:10pm

Yeah, fighting a territory where the enemy gets two bases sucks. Anyway, I put up a coordination thread for online play. Anyone care to join me? I'm on right now.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2006-10-24 08:13pm

The problem I run into against two bases is that I get fucking SWARMED so fast I don't have time to build up to Chaos's Tier 3's to be able to beat them back.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-24 08:15pm

Captain Cyran wrote:The problem I run into against two bases is that I get fucking SWARMED so fast I don't have time to build up to Chaos's Tier 3's to be able to beat them back.

I'm playing Space Marines, and get swarmed right about at the start of Tier 2. The first time I tried it, the Orks had just taken that territory; the second time it was the Tau. Got splattered both times right as my first Dreadnought was getting out.

The Grey Knights were pwning all over the place like they do, but there are just too many Slugga Boyz/Kroot for them to deal with.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2006-10-24 08:35pm

Rogue 9 wrote:I'm playing Space Marines, and get swarmed right about at the start of Tier 2. The first time I tried it, the Orks had just taken that territory; the second time it was the Tau. Got splattered both times right as my first Dreadnought was getting out.

The Grey Knights were pwning all over the place like they do, but there are just too many Slugga Boyz/Kroot for them to deal with.

Yeah. I'll be putting out my Predators when I get hit and slowly pushed back. Any suggestions?

Only thing I can think of is have a huge guard, and then basically charge for one of the enemy bases as fast as you can to smash it or at least weaken it before they can build a big army from it. If one base is out of the loop things get a LOT easier.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-24 08:42pm

Captain Cyran wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:I'm playing Space Marines, and get swarmed right about at the start of Tier 2. The first time I tried it, the Orks had just taken that territory; the second time it was the Tau. Got splattered both times right as my first Dreadnought was getting out.

The Grey Knights were pwning all over the place like they do, but there are just too many Slugga Boyz/Kroot for them to deal with.
Yeah. I'll be putting out my Predators when I get hit and slowly pushed back. Any suggestions?

Only thing I can think of is have a huge guard, and then basically charge for one of the enemy bases as fast as you can to smash it or at least weaken it before they can build a big army from it. If one base is out of the loop things get a LOT easier.

I usually like to build up a little before launching my major offensive, but I suppose there's nothing for it but to try and engage the enemy early and often.

And I really don't want to just venture into the general population of the Gamespy servers if I can help it. Anyone want to come, or should I just go compstomp to get Guard practice?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-10-24 10:23pm

I'm up for a game, if more are willing.

EDIT: Geh, a bit late.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-24 10:28pm

Shinova wrote:I'm up for a game, if more are willing.

EDIT: Geh, a bit late.

I'm still here. Unless you mean it's too late for you to still be awake or something.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-10-24 10:32pm

Lemme check something first.

EDIT: Okay, I'm good to go. Game name is ssnova31.

Where should we meet?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-24 10:41pm

You know, I haven't even checked out the server room names yet. Give me a second.

Edit: The Valhalla room is nice and empty; how about there?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-10-24 10:44pm

Okay, I'll head there.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-10-25 08:24am

Great. We finally get the damn thing here and for some reason Australians can't play. Fuck.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-25 08:43am

Well, just suffered my first loss, on defense. I knew I should have crushed the Eldar completely before moving on. Fortunately, I took the spaceport this turn, so Taldeer is about to once again feel the wrath of the Imperium.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2006-10-25 09:44am

My first loss was on offense, against Chaos on a map where they had garrisoned the everliving crap out of everything, and on top of it their commander was present with a full honor guard. I did start off with a full honor guard as well as a forward base, but pretty much right off the bat, I was getting rushed by the Chaos commander & his honor guard, as well as cultists, chaos marines, and defilers from two AI bases.

Still, I managed to kill off enough of their honor guard & listening posts, and in general and push them back far enough before they pushed me back into my base that the Tau were able to steal the map from Chaos the very next turn, although they were significantly weakened. The turn after that, I invade the same map and wiped them out with a combination of honor guard, heavy-bolter marines, and assault squads.

Let me just say that heavy bolters are awesome. The only time you don't want to go heavy-bolter/missile launcher in your tac squads is when your fighting Necrons, since they're almost exclusively heavy infantry and light vehicles. Plasma is otherwise significantly nerfed because of the increased accuracy penalty that all infantry (except for Necrons) get for firing on the move. Flamers mean that you're practically in CC range, and a lot of assault units move faster than tac squads, meaning that you have pretty much no time to break them.

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2006-10-25 01:38pm

To prevent swamping, get a pair of tier 1 base infantry units (usually Cultists for chaos) out and upgrade them. Get you lone builder to put down a Barracks while your honor guard caps out the nearest points. After that, get your builders to put up listening posts, reinforce those and get your basic infantry out. Now mass your Commander, Honor Guard and your units where you think the enemy is most likely to come from (pretty easy really). Get some builders to build turrets/listening posts on any near by resource points and take 'em as they come in. Do it quick enough, you can have around second and third tier units moving in to support the choke point by the time they start flooding you with the big stuff. And if you have vehicles, you can then flank around, capping resource points and cutting down on their flow of infantry. Then it's a simple rush into their bases. Works wonderfully with Tau.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2006-10-25 02:09pm

The problem was that this is the map right next to the Tau stronghold (which I hadn't played in quite some time), where you're in the middle of the map, the AI has the two upper areas, and there are two entrances to your base located on opposite sides of the plateau your base is on. I set my honor guard to cap points and started to lay down a chapel-barracks and some gens, but as soon as the points were capped, I was getting rushed from both entrances to my base.

I initially made the mistake of thinking that the AIs were based on opposing ends of the map because they attacked both my entrances, so once I defeated the first rush, I sent some tac squads to the closer bottom corner (where I ran into only LP2's). I killed the LP2's and sent the kill team to harass one of the chaos bases while some new squads capped the points, but then the AI started swarming me again, and my infantry core was pretty much destroyed. I managed to get enough points and gens that I could get a Machine Cult down and overwatch Dreadnoughts & Hellfires to support the infantry I was rebuilding, but by then I was seeing about ten Defilers as well as a horde of (by now infiltrated) CSM and cultist squads.

I gave up trying to push through my north entrance and tried to sneak units through the side paths (comming out of my south entrance), but these guys ran into even more units tyring to swarm my south entrance and never made it to the chaos bases. At this point, I pretty much was hanging on as long as I could while Chaos slowly but surely advanced into my base through sheer weight of numbers.

The second time around, I was facing S6 Tau instead of S10 Chaos, and I had saved up the planetary requisition to have a full forward base instead of an armory, a gen, and some turrets. I started capping points immediately, layed down a second Chapel-Barracks while the first was pumping out Space Marine Squads, and fully reinforced them. After I had about three Tactical marines and a pair of Assault marines as well as my honor guard dreadnoughts, I sent them out to give the Tau some trouble in their northeast base, upgrading the tacs w/ overwatched heavy bolters as they became available. By the time I killed off the first Tau base, I had a second killteam ready complete with some newly minted dreads (both "Furioso" and Hellfire) already on its way to the second Tau base, and I sent the first killteam in with them for a much easier win.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-26 03:51am

Yeah, that map is loads of fun.

I've started dealing with the problem of multiple enemy bases by massing my honor guard and heading out right away with the first infantry squad to get done to kill one of them. As my honor guard includes a Dreadnought and a Hellfire, this is more practical than it might seem at first.

Invictus ChiKen · Post by **Invictus ChiKen** » 2006-10-26 07:29am

Gah I wish this thing had an auto save feature. I was doing good as Chaos, then I attacked the Tau fortress and the game froze. Now I am back to having just two territories.

I saddly just assumed this game had an auto save feature. I'm sure I read somthing about it somewhere...

Or maybe it was in the other games...

Vehrec · Post by **Vehrec** » 2006-10-26 10:25am

Rogue 9 wrote:Yeah, that map is loads of fun.

I've started dealing with the problem of multiple enemy bases by massing my honor guard and heading out right away with the first infantry squad to get done to kill one of them. As my honor guard includes a Dreadnought and a Hellfire, this is more practical than it might seem at first.

This tactic also works well with Guard. And probably every race in the game. Crush one base, supress the other, and rush to your MBTs and super units for a quick and easy strength five province.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-26 05:02pm

Kronus is now entirely in Imperial hands. All that's left now is to decide which Imperial hands those will be.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2006-10-26 06:34pm

BWAHAHAHA! I am a Daemon Prince! All shall fall before my might! With the Guard, the Tau, and now the Orc destroyed under the mighty boots of the Chaos gifted, it is only a matter of time before the necrometal husks grow dim once more, the weak alien fodder are food for Slaneesh, and the followers of the God Corpse fall before the true powers of the galaxy!

Orc and Chaos have a great bit.

"Hurry up and get over here so I can kill ya, I've gots other things to be doin' today!"

"Ah, I shall miss our banter when you are dead Orc."

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-27 02:34am

Goddammit. I want to kill Gorgutz and he gets away, and then I want to force the Governor-General to leave without killing him and he blows himself up.

Anyway, Kronus has been purged at the hands of the Blood Ravens. And the Blood Ravens want to capture the narrator so they can make him tell them what he knows about what's happening to them next.

Edit: Something I forgot to mention. The Guard AI cheats like crazy. Whenever you have an infiltrated unit in play, it uses the long range scan ability on it. Even when it could not possibly know the unit was there. As in, train some Scout Marines and BAM, scanner, right there at your stronghold as soon as they come out.

Vehrec · Post by **Vehrec** » 2006-10-27 11:27am

Yeah, the Guard vs Space marine mission is kinda sad. Neither one really wants to do this, but they have their orders. The Governer actually tells the Force commander several times to leave while he still has men to retreat with. That doesn't go over with the space marine ego too well. so he stays until he falls, and then the chaplain blows everything up.
In other news, Space commies-I mean Tau!-have taken the Green Coast. Their next objective is the extermination of every other race that has not accepted a envoy from the water caste. The Necrons and Chaos will fall.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-27 12:52pm

Yeah, it's the same way when the Space Marines attack Victory Bay.