Space Marine early game Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

I would like some tips and strategies for using the SM in the early game. Mainly vs tau and DE. But tips against everything is welcomed.

remember that even tacticals beat a lot of stuff in melee. if you are getting outranged dont underestimate the power of assault marines. scouts wont do you any good in a fight until you get sniper rifles AND invisibility. stun and inferno grenades are your friends. if you want to piss people off really badly build assault bikes and put them in melee. this is all super early though. try to build 4 or more squads of marines (tactical or assault). once you hit tier 1 and can stack plasma you should be fine. remember tau have the same problem you do. they are super blue starved early and trying to rush t1. dark eldar the rules are the same but easier. if you let dark eldar tech though they will likely kill you harder mid game. if all else fails against tau mid game spam dreadnoughts. they dont have very effective anti armor. only broadsides or pathfinders will kill them. try to focus the pathfinders with marines and melee the broadsides (with dreads if you can). if they spam broadsides build more assault marines.

dracmage wrote:

remember that even tacticals beat a lot of stuff in melee. if you are getting outranged dont underestimate the power of assault marines. scouts wont do you any good in a fight until you get sniper rifles AND invisibility. stun and inferno grenades are your friends. if you want to piss people off really badly build assault bikes and put them in melee. this is all super early though. try to build 4 or more squads of marines (tactical or assault). once you hit tier 1 and can stack plasma you should be fine. remember tau have the same problem you do. they are super blue starved early and trying to rush t1. dark eldar the rules are the same but easier. if you let dark eldar tech though they will likely kill you harder mid game. if all else fails against tau mid game spam dreadnoughts. they dont have very effective anti armor. only broadsides or pathfinders will kill them. try to focus the pathfinders with marines and melee the broadsides (with dreads if you can). if they spam broadsides build more assault marines.

So how do i counter a kroot carno rush?

its a matter of squad numbers. if you can get enough marines out they bleed too hard to reinforce. frag grenades help. also melee bikes to block them up and slow them down. basically you start on even footing but whoever wins first fight is going to keep winning. if you have to retreat dont lose marines. dont even use scouts to fight. if the kroot start eating you are going to need t1 before you can even hurt them. also a few towers are pretty much a no go for kroot if you are on defense. watch out for the shapers though. you dont have an answer to them in t0.

I've not played other people very much, but I would be surprised if a combination of jetbikes and assault marines, plus grenades did not do the job. Both bikes and assault marines are nimble and can easily retreat, and bikes are cheap to gather a few together to throw those grenades out. Your units will be much more resistant to any grenades your opponent has than his relatively squishy kroot will, so if worse comes to worse, just dance around the kroot and lob grenades until they back off. You should be able to pick off some of his units with the bikes on chase as well as with flamethrowers. And yeah try to save those scouts to build snipers with later on, those will mangle his kroot.

i find that in a kroot focus rush snipers dont have the dps to scare them off. kroot will eventually swarm assault marines down and shapers will kill the bikes. you do still need tacticals to get heavy bolters or plasma to actually achieve cost effectiveness. i suggest plasma. the bolters are very easy to counter if your opponent switches to fire warriors. you just get the assault marines and bikes to body block the kroot. you get frags and stun grenades because even though they dont outright kill the kroot they will eventually lead to squad wipes because a single frag can take around 15 to 20% of a base (reinforce only) kroot squads hp on a good throw. if you have 3 to 5 squads of marines chucking them it adds up very quickly. it can also drop kroot low enough that the marine falcon punch finishes them off instead of just knocking them back. i generally try to avoid flamers against tau. they help but i always try to hold for plasma.

snipers are pretty nice against fire warriors, commanders, and early battlesuits though.

the reason to spam marines is because of the way their targeting works. they have high damage on impact but low firing speed and middling accuracy. its the same as snipers. one unit isnt scary but four or five can drop whole squads. if you successfully use a marine squad or two and distraction units like assault marines or bikes you can slowly build up to 4 or so marine squads and then you will just force them to switch units by which time you should have plasma access. when i run first deployment i dont even reinforce. i just try to get lots of marine squads on the field. kind of like an orc player. if you can force them to tie you up one on one the kroot will have a hard time doing enough damage to even kill marines. not counting shapers of course. the plasmas will stop the shapers. most maps tau can only afford to reinforce 3 or so carnivore squads at one time. tau dont want to get more than that anyways because carnivores have terrible tier scaling. if you force them to get lots of squads you already won once you get t1.

Thank you guys a lot for these tips, now it's time to go beat up my buddy who keeps murdering me with the greater good, and show him the light of the emperor.

Yeah that was my idea too, just use the assault marines and jetbikes to wall up early until you can afford to get a few real ranged units. The reason I suggested using the scouts as snipers was because you should have some scouts left over from capturing SPs anyway and they work reasonably well with the blocking strategy. If they succeed in breaking the kroot's morale they will let you get in some extra harass damage as they try to flee, and they can take potshots from afar to wear them down so that it's easier to beat them when they come in for melee. And snipers are a good way of dealing with stealth suit harassment as well.

yeah. i wasnt trying to knock snipers. they are just in an awkward place i think. if they were t0 they would have op game ending level potential. as it is with them in t1 they get edged out by so many other choices and have such a small window of viability that i find i only use them if i managed to preserve my capping scouts. i also like them better against expensive infantry. against swarms i find flamers to be more reliable. scout invis changes the game though. serious blue investment that will delay t2 though. opportunity cost is a dick.

I know this isn't a Tau thread, but how are Pathfinders useful against Dreadnaughts?

Not at all. I think their Rail Rifles are only effective against infantry?

Rail rifles are effective against turrets and listening posts. Although slow firing, 2 or 3 pathfinders with rail rifles can actually devastate base defenses.

BlackOpsOne wrote:

Rail rifles are effective against turrets and listening posts. Although slow firing, 2 or 3 pathfinders with rail rifles can actually devastate base defenses.

Don't be that exaggerated. Pathfinders do damage Structures and Vehicles but nothing compared to specialized units like Broadsides, Skyrays (if they don't miss often) or 2 squad of fully reinforced XV15/XV25. But some of the Tau units mentioned underperform if you compare them with Havoc Marines (with weapon choice), Swooping Hawks, Scourges, units with multi-meta, Dreadnoughts...

Scourgers and Havoc Marines are just overpowered though in terms of damage. Can't wait to fix that and buff broadside usefulness.