Dark Crusade impressions and thoughts

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2006-10-31 01:26am

No, I haven't. I've been wondering how a defensive battle for one would work, honestly. The defenders (when attacking) have such a massive advantage, it'd be hard for a human to fuck that up. Especially with the Titan Cannon of the Imperial Guard. Unless your base starts similarly undefended to a regular defense mission, I can't really figure out how one would work.

Has anyone got any idea what happens?

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-10-31 02:16am

You get the map, I think.. but you have a 'starter' base.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-10-31 02:54am

Here's a funny thing.

Someone took over the SM stronghold, and then the Eldar invaded that province, and the player got to use both his race's and SM units at the same time. Weird.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-10-31 11:07am

Huh. The IG didn't get to use Necrons when I took the Thur'Abis Plateau from them.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-10-31 01:22pm

Maybe that's got something to do with the fact that Space Marines are still humans while the Necrons are an Army of Darkness of Undead Soul-Sucking Zombie Robot Vampire Skeletons from Space.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-10-31 03:50pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Huh. The IG didn't get to use Necrons when I took the Thur'Abis Plateau from them.

I think it just happens with the player, but who knows.

Dominus · Post by **Dominus** » 2006-10-31 05:42pm

I'm almost certain that it was a bug. When I took the map as the Guardsmen, the Orbital Relay and Stronghold somehow survived/persisted when there should have been a complete scouring of all Space Marine buildings after the mission's end. When I turned south to take care of the Necrons, the Eldar AI took the opportunity to invade the weakened North Vandea and et voila, I found that I could build Space Marine squads and Dreadnoughts from the badly-damaged-but-somehow-intact Orbital Relay right from the get-go.

It hasn't happened to me since.

HSRTG wrote:No, I haven't. I've been wondering how a defensive battle for one would work, honestly. The defenders (when attacking) have such a massive advantage, it'd be hard for a human to fuck that up. Especially with the Titan Cannon of the Imperial Guard. Unless your base starts similarly undefended to a regular defense mission, I can't really figure out how one would work.

Has anyone got any idea what happens?

No, you start off with a 'starter' base, and nothing else besides. No Titan cannon for the IG, no meatshields or massive wraithbone gates for the Eldar, no fortified positions and stealth teams for the Tau, and so on. I suppose the designers decided that it would be far too easy to hold your stronghold indefinitely against the AI if they gave you all those extras...

Dendrobius · Post by **Dendrobius** » 2006-10-31 06:12pm

SylasGaunt wrote:I still love the bit with the Necrons when you assault the chaos stronghold and the chaos leader flubs his 'devour your souls rant'

As seen on another forum: "Blood...ah I mean Nuts and Bolts for the Blood God!"

Coincidentally in skirmish and multiplayer I find Chaos to be the best equipped to dish out pain to the Necrons. Berzerkers do such a good job...morale immune, CC unit, and isn't one of the girly CC units that shoves the enemy away, but gets in there and lets blood fly.

Manus Celer Dei · Post by **Manus Celer Dei** » 2006-11-01 06:12am

The end of the Ork stronghold is bullshit.

He blows up your army and then does a runner? That's fucking lame! I wanted him to die!

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2006-11-01 07:48am

Dendrobius wrote:
SylasGaunt wrote:I still love the bit with the Necrons when you assault the chaos stronghold and the chaos leader flubs his 'devour your souls rant'
As seen on another forum: "Blood...ah I mean Nuts and Bolts for the Blood God!"

Coincidentally in skirmish and multiplayer I find Chaos to be the best equipped to dish out pain to the Necrons. Berzerkers do such a good job...morale immune, CC unit, and isn't one of the girly CC units that shoves the enemy away, but gets in there and lets blood fly.

I haven't played as Chaos yet, so I'm not sure on the hard-cap for special weapon upgrades, but your forgetting infiltrating heavy bolters. If they're anything similar to Space Marine heavy bolters, they'll chew through Necrons just as easily, and with the added benefit of being extremely annoying.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2006-11-01 09:44am

Dominus wrote:I'm almost certain that it was a bug. When I took the map as the Guardsmen, the Orbital Relay and Stronghold somehow survived/persisted when there should have been a complete scouring of all Space Marine buildings after the mission's end.

Since I don't have the game yet, I do know the Demo has the Relay being 'hijackable' for using the orbital strike against the Marines, and it becomes allied to you. This might be what caused it.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2006-11-02 05:05am

Woot, preorder posted today! Just 1 or 2 more days and then i can be playing some Dark Crusade goodness!

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-11-02 12:10pm

Which stronghold battle do you guys find to be the most difficult overall? Which is the easiest? Do certain factions get an easier time of it than others in the game overall?

For me I tend to waltz through the Ork stronghold mission fairly well, with few hiccups no matter what race I play. I usually just beeline for the big banners and blow them up and bug out let the orks kill themselves then come in for the clean up.

The Tau mission has been the bloodiest and longest for me almost everytime. The last time around as the Orks was a bloody meatgrinder because the Tau long range weapons and Kroot hordes attacking my base from all angles made it really hard to get the boyz up and running towards their goal. Add in the annoying ass snipers along ever walkway and it just gets difficult for a melee centric race like the Orks (though the Flash Gitz shone bright in that mission)

Not a big fan of the invisible guys that can fire and remain invisisble aspect of game play.

I've only done the Necron assault once and found it to be not bloody or awful....just plain long. I was the Imperial Guard for that one and it was a relative cakewalk for me in comparison to the Tau or even assaulting Victory Bay. I'm not looking forward to taking on awakened monoliths with my Waagh however but the Necrons are the last ones left standing at this point in my Ork game.

The Chaos stronghold wins it for me in terms of atmosphere and making you really get the feel of a particular faction.

And as for favored factions I strolled through the campaign as the Tau and surprisingly had an easy time manhandling most factions as the Orks. I dread trying to play through as Eldar because I just don't do Eldar very well and the Tau stronghold is going to be a bitch.

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2006-11-02 12:15pm

After the ever-lasting pain in the neck that is THQ delaying the game twice, I'm start to think thres no point in getting it anymore.

Out next week is MTW2, which will rule anyones time, as they kick European arse., so should I bother getting DC tommrow (if they bloody delivered it

) Or should I keep my money for a rainy day?

It's up to you!

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-11-02 12:34pm

I say go for it.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-11-02 01:24pm

The IG or Eldar bases have to be the toughest for me. With the IG, it's a nightmare trying to run their gauntlet of bases. You have to beeline it to the cannon, and throw some victims away to get it to recharge.

The Eldar base is worse. They continuously spam fireprisms, breaking the pop cap, coming in waves of four or six at a time at their main fortress...

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2006-11-02 01:38pm

Nephtys wrote:The Eldar base is worse. They continuously spam fireprisms, breaking the pop cap, coming in waves of four or six at a time at their main fortress...

The key is to never assault their main base up at the top of the mountain. Just take the big-ass webway gates and wait 10 minutes. The only place which suffers regular Eldar attacks is the center one, with the Relic by it. The other two you can just keep one squad of infantry near. You will need to keep a fast response force (ideally, a pair of MBTs and a couple of APCs) handy to make sure a fast strike doesn't grab a peripheral gate, but other than that you'll be fine. It's a good idea to destroy the Chaos and Ork bases, because you get a free MBT and bodyguard elite squad from each. The MBTs do not count towards your unit cap, so you can break the pop-cap too.

Use your artillery to continuously bombard the central ramp up to the main Eldar fortress. That'll keep the Banshees and Seer Councils from coming all as a mob.

EDIT:
As for the IG base, APCs are your friend for getting across the Trench of Doom. Artillery really won't do any good for that, so self-destruct them for that last run. Dark Crusade really gave some good uses for those otherwise useless infantry carriers.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2006-11-02 01:47pm

HSRTG wrote:EDIT:
As for the IG base, APCs are your friend for getting across the Trench of Doom. Artillery really won't do any good for that, so self-destruct them for that last run. Dark Crusade really gave some good uses for those otherwise useless infantry carriers.

That is something I've noticed. I may not use them extensively, but I use the infantry carriers a lot more than I used to. Which was never.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2006-11-02 02:01pm

Hell, with Space Marines I mechanize my entire force now; there's no reason not to.

Edit: There's something about the Necron mission that makes the game crash; this is the third time in a row.

Edit2: GAH! I beat the mission and it crashed in the cutscene!

Vanas · Post by **Vanas** » 2006-11-03 04:22pm

Just got it, had a couple of quick skirmishes. He's a quick rundown of initial thoughts:

---General---

The new armies seem alot less customiseable. I have 458 extra badges for a reason, damnit, I demand to see them everywhere. Maybe the Necs can be an exception, but it still bugs me slightly.

Stealth units firing has pissed me off since StarCraft. Especially when they're all firing tracers. Oh well, Earthshakers on the firing air then.

Also, my Shas'O seems to be stuck as Cyan. I swear I have no cyan in any of my units.

---Tau---

After an initial play, the Pretty Colours Squad came across as... well... 'meh'. I dunno. I didn't really find them all that special, and my love for cerulean death-beams is well noted.
That said, the Kroot were most fun. The jumping at, and then devouring the enemy providing welcome comic relief.

---Grey Knights--
hehehehe. That is all.

---Necrons---

I did like the Necrons though. There's nothing quite like teleporting a Monolith into an enemy base with a cry of 'Exterminate!' and dispatching an awful lot of Necrons from within it.

Current preferred Necron Lord Cool Stuff™ is Phylactery, Orb of Pretty Colours and something random. Lightning Thingy and Time Thingy seem amusing enough.

---So...---

I'll dive into the campaign at some point, probably. Just after I get all my armies set up again and dig out my favourite maps again.

---
Today's main lesson: If you party too hardy, the Necron Lord will kick your arse

((All colours are in beta testing at present. I quite like the purple though.))

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2006-11-03 07:05pm

Vanas wrote:Stealth units firing has pissed me off since StarCraft. Especially when they're all firing tracers. Oh well, Earthshakers on the firing air then.

Yeah, I've never gotten why that works. Why don't my guys shoot at where the tracers originate? Seriously.

Vanas wrote:Also, my Shas'O seems to be stuck as Cyan. I swear I have no cyan in any of my units.

The Shas'O's main color is the secondary color for your units. So if your guys are primarily green with small stripes of purple, your Shas'O is purple. Your guys have small stripes of Cyan on them. Somewhere. Check the color sliders.

I think the colors are for easy unit differentiation. If you want to quickly select the Shas'O from a group of units, but are too stupid to click on the top left hero icons, you can. Unfortunately, this works in reverse too. Human opponents can easily single out the hero in the mob.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2006-11-04 03:42am

Thats why I love greandes on Marine squads and IG Shock Troopers. See them firing, BANG. Aimed right, a single greande generaly kills all the infiltrated units.

Archon · Post by **Archon** » 2006-11-04 03:48am

Chris OFarrell wrote:Thats why I love greandes on Marine squads and IG Shock Troopers. See them firing, BANG. Aimed right, a single greande generaly kills all the infiltrated units.

I can't believe I never thought of that.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2006-11-04 04:48am

Archon wrote:
Chris OFarrell wrote:Thats why I love greandes on Marine squads and IG Shock Troopers. See them firing, BANG. Aimed right, a single greande generaly kills all the infiltrated units.
I can't believe I never thought of that.

works on stikk bombs, plasma grenades, and other tricks too.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2006-11-04 04:53am

I surrounded the cloaked Eldar rangers with my marines, let them keep firing until my servo skull popped up and then *splat*. Eldar + 30 bolt guns = squishy red stuff.