UA post-custom campaign singleplayer strats Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

Disclamers:

This is for the vanilla campaign, which of UA version 1.88.74 1.89 has not been replaced by the UA team's planned custom campaign.

(@)AND YOU CAN'T PLAY IT. THE WEBWAY TERRITORIES WILL GIVE A "FATAL SCAR ERROR EXECUTION PAUSE" WHEN YOU WIN IN ANY WAY. YOU CANNOT PLAY THE CAMPAIGN BEYOND THE FIRST PLANET ANYMORE.

In conjunction with UA, I have used the following mods, loaded by using the DoW mod manager found here. literally.

• Kaurava Campaign for Ultimate Apocalypse by Fanzanzza
• Soulstorm: Persistent Campaign Bases Mod by Kasrkin84
• a mod that modified campaign maps to have more population. (sorry I forgot where I got it from)

The Guide will list how I personally found to be the best strategy to play each race. This is NOT a PvP guide.

I am assuming that you have some experience playing the campaign in vanilla Dawn of war soulstorm.

I will list the factions based on their stronghold place in the Kauravas system. (if you are wondering)

(UPDATE) The 1.89 update didn't affect much of the basics of this guide but there is some new notable stuff. check for strikethroughs in the original guide for those updates. I will also add a few things I missed the first time around. they won't be marked.

General Strategic importance.

In the campaign, each faction gains a strategic advantage such as extra starting units or more varied movement option in the strategic map. You also get more strategic advantages via defeating another faction's stronghold or controlling specific parts of the strategic map. the following will list each of faction's strategic advantage and what I think of them.

NOTE: The AI does get these advantages but in most cases, they don't use them to too much effect.

• Sisters of The Space Marines: Foward thinking (great)

Lets you spend strategic requisition points before an attack to get a forward base built. UA has reworked the tech level system for all the factions. you generally want to have a high level in general as it unlocks better upgrades and tactical weapons for even the most basic infantry units. A forward base allows you to gain more starting buildings which allows you to quickly tech up to level 2 and saves resources constructing buildings. Get the barracks, armoury, and Plasma generator. Turrets are best used for Stronghold assaults only. Try to get this as soon as possible.

Apparently a simple geographical

• Imperial meat grinder: Blessing of the production line. (good)

Cheaper strategic costs. reinforcing a region, Honor guard, deep strike units, and forward bases cost are made cheaper by the assistance of the imperial manufacturing facilities. Yes, it works on Wraithbone and living metal, able to manufacture advance tau technology, and is simple enough for an Ork to control it. Bless the Machine spirit.

• Space marines (bloody magpies): Iron rain maneuver (great)

Extra squads of units when starting the battle. There seems to be an issue with these units as they have vanilla stats and vanilla strategic weapon selections. nonetheless, they work well as strategic capturing parties and extra skulls for the skull throne. They help to curry favour for the dark gods quickly take territory and Make more blood for the blood god box the enemy in. Try to get this as soon as possible

• Orks: Mor Boyz Yea? (No ya git!)

Periodically a Gretchin get gretch-out of a gretch-ass and adds to a region's reinforcement pool. A.K.A. conquered regions slowly (and I mean slowly) gets reinforced with orks starting with the cheapest units, which is the Gretchin builder. the reinforcements can be sold for extra strategic requisition but it's fairly useless.

• Tau: Nothing (you get NOTHING!)

The tau moon base cannon caught a glitch which made it's environmentally conscious cannon do absolutely nothing. it makes a cool effect when you press an attackable area but nothing actually happens. I mean, the game doesn't have persistent bases like in Dark crusade so it's not like it will do anything drastic anyway if it works. not like it could destroy buildings anyway. so effectively you get nothing.

• Eldar: Feet on fire (decent)

Allow moving twice as far in the strategic map. simple. You can't attack twice, however.

• Necron: WAKE UP! PUT ON A LITTLE MAKE UP! (Death is useless)

honour guards MAYBE revived if they die in battle. With how weak the honour guards became with UA, as they are a separate unit and thus don't get any modification from the mod, they will die, they will be revived again, and again, within the same battle because Necrons, but they pale in comparison to the normal units you can build. Honour guard Wraiths don't even get invisibility.

• Chaos: Red Portals (ask Tzeentch, it's probably within one of the molluscs plans.)

Ignore supply lines. If a territory has no direct path to the stronghold of the factions, that factions do not receive the requisition produced by that territory. Defending is fairly easy (if you used the persistent bases mod) so this pretty much gives you nothing but occasional help. Why? Ask Tzeentch.

• Dark Eldar: Purple Portals (decent)

Allow you to use every portal in the Kauravas system like (a dark) Eldar portals. You can attack any planet anytime but you are stuck with conquering the ancient web way territory first which gives you nothing. like the Eldar Fleet foot, it helps with mobility.

Numbers

Regions in the strategic map are marked with a number and most of you would probably ignore this since its most relevant for auto-resolve which is not what you want to do. Nevertheless, i need to explain it's importance to skirmishes.

While the A.I don't get to make persistent bases, they can have two separate bases which can overwhelm you if you're not careful. you can tell what the enemy might have by pressing the INSPECT button when selecting a region. If you can't gauge how hard the battle will be from the bullet points then you should not skip this. The following are the number ranges that you should keep in mind.

1-4: Easy, the enemy has 1 Base and some starting units.

5-6: medium, Enemy has two bases. you have to keep an eye on both. One of them might be equipped with Anti-infantry turrets try to box in that base while destroying the less defended one. (Orks, Tau, and Dark Eldar have no vanilla turrets so they won't have any turrets. However, the Orks have guns on every building they own and the Dark Eldar are a spamming piece of wraithbone so don't go charging into their base with weak units.

7-10: By the emperor! You are outnumbered and possibly outgunned. don't attempt these unless you're confident with your skills commanding your faction OR have both forward base and deep strike maxed out.

Faction specifics

the following are my thoughts about playing as and against each faction, an overview of upgrades and a battle plan. a battle plan is the earliest point in the research level I believe gives the player a faction-specific edge in the game. Beyond that point is usually reserved for some destructive fun. a sport if you will.

• Sisters of Battle [Faith is our underwear/hair gel/makeup/faith/gun cleaner/medicine/invincibility?!]

Battle Plan: (5) Get to tier 2, Research Emperor's touch and Divine Retribution in the Reliquary. get a missionary on every possible squad.

Upgrades: the sisters have an odd obsession with double-dipping. they have two separate upgrades to increase their health and weapon damage of infantry and then have a separate upgrade to improve health and another to improve damage for infantry. Has a unit (redemtionists) that always has the emperor's touch buff which can be given a missionary to double-dip on getting pats on the head by the emperor (which does nothing). They also have two separate new defences making them arguably the most defensive-oriented faction and five separate command unit (not counting the elite builder unit) beating the Necron's four. otherwise, they have the same upgrades with some minor fluf. the holy reliqary only has faith based upgrades. faith is plentiful. you will not run out of faith.

As friend: The sisters rely on faith to edge out the competition. spam those (1)missionaries and spam those faith buffs. Emperor's poke let your units deal universal damage which means it is good against anything from units to buildings, you won't run out of faith. (5), use it as much as you want. Early on however pay attention to the strategic weapon effectiveness tags. a mutimelter is good against vehicles, they won't be good against structures. The inverse is also true, a heavy flamer is good against structures but not vehicles.

As foe: (6)The AI has a tendency to try and tie down (force into melee) your range units, if you have superior melee units use them against the sisters preferably one with no moral whatsoever. The sisters are the middle ground between the imperial guards and space marine (2)so they are not very durable and don't have overwhelming firepower but they will slowly burn through your ranks with Area of effect weapons, tieing them down usually prevents any use of the flamers. (3)Despite having melta guns and multimelters their early anti-vehicle ability struggle to take down vehicles in a short period of time so always escort your vehicles around the sisters and they won't get destroyed.

(1.89 update):

(1)you need a holy reliquary to build missionaries. they are also available as a permanent attachment to squads so you don't need to explicitly make missionaries from the chapel anymore.

(2) this is especially true with their new early unit and faith system, the inisiate sister is a worse version of the sisters of battle squad that you have to contend with. they will survive better than a lone missionary or a squad of conscripts but can't really survive bigger fights. they can't reinforce themselves with missonaries so they are the onlt units that needs a lone missonary to be attached to them.

(3) strategic weapons has been buffed. celestials are especially good at destroying vehicles. with the emperor's touch, they get that holy Lazer bolter that is effective at everything and looks cool.

(4) the sisters now have an interesting war gear that allows all of them to teleport a short distance. this won't help in long-range travels but they can now move their builders past a short ravine if needed.

(5) this was probably not true even a year ago. while yes those buffs are powerful and they can strike down an infantry squad in seconds, they won't last. If your infantry units are locked in combat, emperor's touch won't work. don't waste the cooldown (yes, the cooldown is the limiting factor because faith is cheap) if your units are tied. While they are "effective against everything" they still are sub-par at destroying buildings. don't use them to destroy buildings. only vehicles and infantry.

(6) The serephim. the sister's early melee unit now is a range unit by defaut. this means they won't try to tie down your units anymore.

instead, get to tier 3, get saints and redemptionists. until then, however, use fire to damage buildings(they suck but that's your only option)

odd facts:

• The seraphim have about the same damage at range and in melee.
• (4)the sisters have no way to travel past a ravine.

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• Imperial guards [Three-quarters of our army gone? A minor setback]

Battleplan: Get to regimental command (tier 2) get (3)one medusa (griffon mortar) and however many basilisks

Upgrades: satellite targeting resolution is very important otherwise the guardsmen would move close enough to smell the enemies unburned flamer fuel and they want to be as far away from the enemy as possible. this extra range prevents flamers to be used efficiently, however. Krak grenades are essential to research. basically, the imperial guard infantry requires all the help it can get. send in the next wave is great.

As friend: I have found that flashlights are (1)totally useless in gunfights, instead, (2)get plasma guns. never send an imperial guard squad without plasma guns to fight the enemy. they have less fighting power than a sluggaboy squads... at range. despite it telling us that plasma guns are good against heavy infantry, its good against anything en mass and that's a fairly easy thing to do with the imperial guards. Also, try to outnumber the enemy, the basic imperial guard squad is almost half the cost of a space marine squad. the base sentinels are good early vehicles with good armour. Their main source of firepower, however, is their artillery. Medusa (griffon mortars) are the longest ranged rapid-fire anti-infantry artillery in the game any infantry assault would be shredded by this artillery which somehow outranged the basilisk. (4)as some have suggested in other parts of this forum, the meatshield of meatshields, imperial conscripts are a prime place to put your commissar into to... boost moral. don't get the rocket launcher squad attachment. they will give your guardsmen a reason to not be in the frontlines where they should be. you don't need to choose a doctrine. use it when you have a plan.

As foe: They suck. The AI won't cluster with the imperial guards and waste resources on flamers and dead guardsmen because they think corpses in green flack suites are good decorations. the biggest threat is the heavy weapons teams as they can easily outgun a squad of another faction at range because of their range defence boost. they fall fairly quickly in melee. the same can be said about every guardsmen infantry except the Ogryns, so tie them down in melee but don't run into a firing line. (a firing line is a densely pack group of 4 or more range guardsmen squads (conscripts are not guardsmen))

(1.89 update):

(1) their default weapon aren't totally useless now but the strategic weapons are still better.

(2) imperial guardsmen squad (the first tier range units) don't get plasma guns anymore. you can still get plasma guns on special weapons teams (tier 2 range unit) however just getting a mass of strategic weapons (two of each) and the las gun buff gives the guards an equally devastating attack.

(3) the medusa was moved one tier up. the basilisks still work well.

(4) the commissar can on any other squad. the imperial conscripts are weak. they can be whipped out by a singe grenade.

odd facts

• primaries psyker requires ibram's vestment to reinforce. you get ibram's vestment in the campaign AFTER every other wargear as you get a custom commander which replaces the modded commander.
• Flag barrers are hot-keyed to the attack move button hot-key meaning you will inevitably get a few flags in some of your guardsmen squads

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• Space marines [initiating attack protocol 23. This will be easy, they won't see us coming...]

Battle plan: Use the might of the space marine themselves. your good to go at any tier really but if you really want to feel like a space marine commander, get to tier 2, build orbital relays and spam drop pods.

Upgrades: two separate durability upgrades. Two! otherwise its fairly generic.

As friend: they have a ridiculous level of durability. they will win most engagement out of sheer durability. I recommend not getting the missile launcher strategic weapon for the marines as it makes the whole squad stand a bit too far to effectively engage anything. melter guns however quickly get outranged after a few upgrades so pick your poison. they also have attack bikes which are annoying as hell to take down and there "do doughnuts" ability can do so much damage early in the game. if you need stealth detection, every squad can get a skull probe.

As foe: Same as above. try to get anti-heavy infantry weapons and something to kill the bikes. they will be your bain.

odd facts

• tactical Space marines can punch Xenos and heretics in melee range into space.

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• Orks [orks orks orks orks WAHOOO!]

Battleplan: KILL DA OTHER BOYZ!

Upgrades: The Orks use a different way to unlock units needing a certain level of population cap to even start to research that unit unlock. For unit upgrades they have fairly specific upgrades like the Blastier research which increases damage to all range tactical weapons and Da big boom research which gives their rokkit launch tactical weapon moor omp. probably the most important upgrade is the Gretchin infiltration which can easily protect your builders from unnecessary death... ya Gretchin lovin nob. best to get everything as you won't know what exactly you are sending to the enemy most of the time

As friend: Da Orks r a mish-mash of shiny bits and fleshy bits. Them slugger boyz are only good for one thing, dying. Id say get the 'ard boys for choppin, flash glitz for dakka and looters for mor dakka and get a lot of them. Da Orks gets stat boots with mor orks around them. but until ya can get them boyz, ya best bet is ta fight with da Big mek, Kommandoz, Warboss, and only other detector, weird boy, da biggest Orks around to save up the shiny bits to get them WAAAAGH! Banners up. start researching more work pop! as fast as da slugga boyz dies and get them points up. Dont reinforce Grot gang, them Gretchin lovin Gretchin die fasta then slugga boyz. only get them for them gun kartz.

As foe: They dont kill da other boyz. They not REAL orks.

odd faks

• Da big mek has better range damage than melee.
• kill bursta is the closes thing to mobile artillery the orks have. No, that long barrel on the kill krusha does not mean it shoots further.
• no way to travel pass a large ravine

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• Tau [For the gather goods that is the backside of the atherials]

Battleplan: Get both the Mont'ka and Kauyon command posts for them upgrades.

Upgrades: One would generally want to get every upgrade, except maybe the stealth suite upgrades, as they all contribute to the fight. giving more range and damage to tau plasma weaponry and more durability to Kroot units and most players would have both in a fighting force.

As friend: In the campaign, you get access to an early but expensive vespid stingwing squad which can shread anything from buildings to units to vehicles. this is separate from the UA stingwing unit but just as deadly. they cost around 870 requisitions which the normal UA one costs 510 but they are worth it. As said before, always try to get a Kroot carnivore squad to cover a fire warrior team as going into melee is a death sentence to any tau unit, even the late Crisis and Hazard suites squads health pales in comparison to even a single Grater Kenarloc and they are cheaper with only needing 900 requisition. Hazard suites cost 900 energy and 300 requisition. and that is what you pretty much do all game.

As foe: Use fast melee units to attack the tau units and prioritize them first. they do the majority of the damage. Ignore the kroots until they are delt with. If there are not kroot units, its tau season!

Odd facts

• the Krootox has more range damage than melee. setting them to range attack when attacking buildings actually deals more damage.

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• Eldar [just as a falcon brought something to somewhere we bring warriors to the front]

Battleplan: tier 1 (aka build soul shrine) get a support portal get a wraithlord out.

Upgrades: Eldar separates its upgrades between a few structures. what you want are the vehicle upgrades as I will detail why later. Imbue: wraithtomb at the soul shrine and vehicle holo-field research at the support portal allows the wraithlord to completely regenerate with just a single click. shining spear upgrades at the shrine of the laughing god, and every upgrade in the webway gate and websail are worth upgrading, the rest requires planning to actually use.

As friend: Eldar infantry, especially the two harassment infantry built in the webway assembly, are ill-equipped to fight other factions straight on. in fact I'd advice to just not make an aspect portal (infantry building) at all. make a few Plasma generators then make a soul shrine and then make the support portal. use the webway assembly infantry only to capture points and only harass when at an advantage. at least until you can get late-game units.

As foe: Like the imperial guard they will try to attack with fairly squishy infantry with little to no support so retaliate directly since you will most likely win. just be ready for a lot of platforms guns and bikes. At least they can't doughnut. Never fight alone.

odd facts:

• Fire prism has an issue with its toggle prism beam ability which switches it to anti-armour mod but won't turn back to anti-infantry mod.
• Fleet foot will automatically and repeatedly activate itself if used by Dire Avengers.

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• Necron: [*Sexy static noises*]

Battleplan: Using the forward base strategic power get an early forbidden archive, get as many obelisks and power generaters out and get amplification research: power income as quickly as possible.

Upgrades: all the infantry the Necrons have separate upgrades, pick the ones you would most likely use in that battle and ignore the rest. there are two universal upgrades I recommend you always get, Living metal and Death march. the more juicy upgrades are the ones from the amplification generators UA put it. Amplification research: power income costing about 3000 power gives you max power income for a cost similar to a single restored monolith.

As friend: Spam out your free builders and start capturing points. they are free, get as many as you feel safe to do. normal power generators will go up in price by 25 for every other built while smaller amplification generators also increase but they also get cheaper for every obelisk made to the point that it becomes free. rely heavily on your honour guards to hold the enemy back for as long as you feel safe. Don't fight any battle with two or more bases, your metal ass is too slow to box in one base while working towards the other. wait until you get more honour guards and the forward base strategic advantage. the Necron warrior is powerful enough to fight light vehicles such as transports and sentinels. the reassemble ability given by the summoning core can resurrect an army from a single surviving Necron.

As foe: Rush them. the worse they can have is a single destroyer and a few warriors with gauss turrets. the best? Only builder scarabs. so rush them.

Odd facts

• Necron Honor guards compared their UA normal units can't be more different. The destroyer honour guard is just one unit. UA made the normal destroyer a squad of 3.

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• Chaos [I AM NOT YOUR BOOTLET!!!]

Battle plan: What you want is to get enough firepower to completely demolish the enemy under your bootheel. Entering Tier 1 and making a sacrificial circle give you access to the soldiers of the dark gods. Melee specialist korn beserkers, Moral and structure destroyer noise marines, and the putrid armour melting plauge marines.

Upgrades: Sowing chaos is as simple as a magic trick. chaos has infiltration upgrades for their basic chaos marines, cultists, and their dreadnought. other than that most of the upgrades centres around mid to short-range fights. there are no increase range upgrade for the infantry, only accuracy upgrades. in fact just like the servants of the false emperor, chaos also has two separate durability upgrades.

As friend: THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH PLAYING AS THE CHAOS IS THAT YOU HAVE TO CONTEND WITH THE DARK ELDAR FIRST AND FOREMOST. THEY CONSISTENTLY SPAM MELEE UNITS TO HARASS YOUR RANGE UNITS. JUST GIVE IN TO THE TEMPTATION AND SEND OUT RAPTORS TO CHAIN THEIR SORRY ASSES TO WHERE THEY CAME FROM! LIKE THE SPACE MARINE, CHAOS RELY ON HEAVY INFANTRY UNITS TO GET THE BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!! THE CHASO SPACE MARINES IS PROBABLY THE ONLY UNIT I THINK THAT WOULD BENEFIT FROM A FLAMER BECAUSE OF HOW CLOSE THEY TEND TO GET TO THE ENEMY!!! IT'S RANGE NEVER IMPROVES!!!

As foe: THOSE METAL BIKES ARE THE BAIN OF MY. DARK. ELDAR. TORTURE HORNS! THEY HAVE ABOUT THE SAME THREAT AS SPACE MARINES BIKES. THEY WILL ALSO SEND OUT CULTISTS TO CAPTURE POINTS THEY ARE SO WEAK ALMOST ANY OTHER FACTION'S SCOUT UNIT CAN TAKE THEM OUT. THERE IS NO EARLY GAME FOR THE CHAOS. JuSt aS PlAnEd!!!

oDD FACTS

• Chaos honour guards are the worse currently. they are literally a single melee unit OR A CULTIST SQUAD

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• Dark Eldar [*incoherant mumbling* NO! NOT THE WHIP!!!]

Battleplan: disrupt the enemy's ability to create a standing army. Tier 1 get haywire grenades on the field.

Upgrades: Dark Eldar has an odd set of upgrades, like the Eldar they are used in fairly specific situations. the Wych-cult arena has lustres of soul which is like the Eldar sing button full heal but for infantry at the cost of souls. that is a sacrifice i am willing to make. An earlier research, Poison blade might help take down enemy commanders as well.

As friend: Just like the Eldar, the Dark eldar's infantry is problematic. in this case, you don't have a choice, like a slave. in the early game, you get two types of melee unit and one types of range unit. anti-infantry emplacements would be your biggest threat, and any type of vehicles will be your favourite treat filled with razors. In the campaign, your Arcon can get haywire bombs as one of its wargear which are effective against buildings and vehicles. i recommended getting it as you will need it to fight chaos and their damn bikes. You might be inclined to spam buildings as soon as you start the game since the dark Eldar has self-building clubhouses, but save them for a few early points and plasma generators. Your early army has no good anti vehicles except for the Arcon, the good the bad and the ugly ones are at tier 1 and they cost a lot more power then you can generate in 10 seconds. abuse haywire grenades as much as you can. Get a second Kabal fortress soon. you'll need the extra power.

As foe: They tend to spam Hellions and Warriors which usually puts you in a perpetual melee situation as you try to tie down their range while their melee tries to tie down yours. Use vehicles and strong melee units to swat these flies. with how fast they can capture points they will have more resources than you. if there is a stray point somewhere you can bet good money the dark Eldar already have a listening post on that. maybe it's because of the infinite squad cap mod but the AI is god tear with these spikey pretty boys. you will get swarmed and it will be a bad time. if you can, never split your units against the dark Eldar, never fight territories higher than 4 if you are facing dark eldar, and never leave them alone. rush them as best you can. an even fight is not something they can handle

Odd facts

• according to the Warhammer-guide the dark eldar and imperial guard has the fastest point capturing speed next to Orks
• run is a universal ability given by UA. Use it.

Edited by: mann.w

Great post.

How did you get the campaign base mod to work properly?

Browncoat2000 wrote:

Great post.

How did you get the campaign base mod to work properly?

Sorry for the long reply. You can probably find someone to explain it better on the campaign base mod page, but I just use the merging ability of the mod manager to merge the two mods. it seems to work well enough. all buildings are preserved except for upgrades. the command center only preserves its first two upgrades however.

Edit: sorry. you'll have to find a way to download 1.88. its the latest version that can play the campaign reliably.

Edited by: mann.w