Assaulting the Eldar Stronghold - Dawn of War: Dark Crusade 04

[@Dianbler]

The strongholds are one of the things that make Dark Crusade special.

[@Bahzellbahnakson]

Jayborino for your information. At 20.00 the attack was by warp spiders and they have a teleport ability

[@patrikbengtsson925]

I strongly recommend that you get the camera zoom mod. It will make it so you can actually see the entire army in one frame. Love the series so far regardless!

[@cpugwash7085]

Economic notes: For future reference, you can get a bit more income by building additional HQ's, each one produces more requisition. Unlike the original one, they do decay over time similar to points, but one or two additional ones do pay for themselves, (as well as letting you build more power generators (and more turrets if you're playing as non-tau races)). This is mainly useful on strongholds where there are very few strategic points available, and can let you max out a bit faster. Space is a concern as the tau, though, plus each one increases the cost of further HQ's. Other races HQ's are a bit smaller and it's less annoying to find room. As far as the extra units that are marked as honour guard go, that's actually slightly interesting: They don't generally carry forward, but, if you already had an honour guard of that type when invading the territory, and you then loose it during the mission, as long as the new one is alive it will count as though you hadn't lost the one that's part of your actual honour guard. (I hope that made sense) But, you just plain can't get honour guard hammerheads.

[@pawezabicki9409]

Thermal Plasma Generators are MASSIVE for Tau, especially on strongholds, becouse in each one you have to storm fortified possitions. Get two TPG and build two drone carriers. Then right-click drone bulding and set relly point on enemy fortifications. With 6xPG and 2xTPG you've got endless amount of drones. They take enemy attention, protecting other troops and also have great renge domage.

[@7Adamus]

There are walls next to the strongholds that preveds enemies from attacking from that direction, you can also play the "W8 game", just defend untill enemies attack you 10 times to get a free wargear.

[@Dianbler]

I'm pretty sure you only need to defend 3 or 5 times, 10 times is attacks.

[@7Adamus]

@@Dianbler maybe you're right I haven't played it in a while, thx :3

[@tendotm7086]

You get wargear for 1-5-15 conquests and for 1-3-5 defenses.

[@PhotonConductor]

You can use Devilfish transports to move railgun battlesuits fast across the field. Besides these transports have good anti-infantry guns to make stealth sneak attacks)

[@ivanivanovic5586]

That's neat actually, I never knew that (I think broadsides were in 3-size squads at the start).

[@ivanivanovic5586]

Back was I played these missions (mid-to-late '00s), it took me 2hr for each of the stronghold (both dc and ss), only because of me wanting to full exterminatus the map, 1-ish hour for this, in my book that's fast, good job on that. Atk-ing chaos stronghold will be good laugh (your hero unknowingly snarks the enemy one, you'll see). Those chaos guys wore the Night Lords colors. Lorewise, out of the 9 traitor legions, they are surprisingly untainted by chaos (mainly because they use chaos as a tool rather than submitting themselves to it), plus, they pick their battles (they even have a trilogy (novels Soul Hunter, Blood Reaver and Void Stalker, highly recommended), and their specialty are terror tactics. Regarding the honor guard fire warriors, unless changes were made in the meantime, they got extra range with that kauyon upgrade on top of their already impressive starting range (even tho they use carbines which have less range than rifles would). I don't remember if crisis suits use that fusion blaster (good vs vehicles buildings and later aircraft) if not upgraded with flamer/missile pod. The plasma rifle commander uses is listed to be anti-all so great choice there (ss replaced it with ion blaster, wasn't really impressed, ss was head-scratchingly weird with some wargear choices). I think final tally was minimum 5 to 1, if not even 8/10 to 1 (perhaps the hardest wargear condition to meet for both dc and ss), others are easier. PS. In the canon ending for dc, following the eldar defeat, farseer's spirit stone (an item eldar use to stop their souls from entering the warp after they die and be eaten by the chaos god they created) was taken and kept as a souvenir by then-chapter master of the Blood Ravens (more on that much later).

[@UMTongo]

Ah the blood ravens being ravens taking everything pretty

[@Blazieth]

Tau do indeed have the whole "Fire Water Earth Air" thing going with their Caste system. Fire Caste are the army/warriors. Water Caste are merchants, diplomats, administrators, stuff like that. Earth caste are farmers, builders, laborers, etc. Air caste are messengers, pilots, crews, etc.

[@YberDC]

19:58 those teleported in, the ability is equivalent to the melee space marines that can jump around places.

[@onatyungul872]

Hey Jay, if you build more main structure you can build more energy generators (and more turrets for turret having races) also HQ should grant req resource as well.

[@vicious2802]

Jay has found the bodyguard power...I'm so proud.

[@RebelWvlf]

40:03 - they are called Earth Caste because in-lore they are coming from "Fio" (Earth) tribe of Tau who lived in the mountains, allied themselves with "Kor" (Air) tribe and were known to build walls, cannons and fortresses as well and being farmers and artists. They are not connected to planet Terra in any means. When Imperium found Tau, they were pretty much in Stone Age, knowing only basic tools, fire and killing each other over resources. The reason why Tau are so emotionally attached to the Greater Good is that they lived in basically Dark Age (Mont'au in their language) and were on the edge of extinction both by illness and their own hands until Ethereals shown up and shown them their ideology. Later on Humans wanted to commit genocide on them and colonize their world, but Warp Storm came out of nowhere and locked up their world for 6000 years (as well and Age of Apostasy in Imperium which caused Humans to forget that Tau and their world even existed), buying time for Tau to develop into faction that we know now. They don't have psykers nor connection to Warp, so Warp Storm served pretty much like barrier for outside forces.

[@Storm2war]

eldar stronghold is one of the most tiedious and long encounter in the game but Tau stronghold is the hardest to conquer

[@VortexofPessimism]

I remember the Tau stronghold being just absurdly more difficult than any of the others.

[@ivanivanovic5586]

Ah yes, both ork and necron had sick burns for that mission (it wasn't too hard but dragged on, ofc, this was in version 1.0).

[@Geekazoid92Real]

Meanwhile the Space Marine one is laughably easy... Especially as the Imperial Guard. Here is the 4 step guide for beating the Space Marine Stronghold as Imperial Guard: 1) Secure the Orbital Relay 2) Scan the Fortress Monastary 3) Use the Orbital Relay to bombard the Fortress Monastary 4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 as needed until the Monastary is rubble. You Win!

[@k-leb4671]

@@VortexofPessimism The Tau having both Kauyon and Mont'ka units and upgrades was just insane. It really goes to show they need their tech tree split in half for them to be balanced.

[@belchgod]

4:41 bodyguard are a squad of 5 shas'ui i think

[@xanaodin]

the necrons and imperial guard always tend to wait until they have a stronger attack force then they tend to just keep attacking and winning.

[@sebastianseibert3642]

Broadside suits are good in static defense, when used in entrenched mod. Try to use them in that way

[@Storm2war]

Wow satisfying fight T-rex vs Angry avatar

[@ivanivanovic5586]

Big angry parrot against big walking furnace :P

[@spikmaster18]

Man invading Eldar stronghold is quite an effort, you literally must fend of powerful unit in very early phase of the attack.

[@burnedsmackdown4209]

I still suggest once you completed the Tau you do all the other forces and only record stronghold missions because they got unique things to say

[@shadowfang7825]

If u press the a button then u can attack move which makes them move to a position and attack anything on the way to there

[@FenekkuKitsune]

"Kaliyon"? Oh, no, Jay XD

[@jerehelenius523]

yeah broadside walker suits are just walking railguns with really low health (and takes ages to walk anywhere lol), thats why i like crisis suits better... its nice jay loved hammer heads they are really good if you have some earth caste to repair them if needed .. :D yeah earth caste = builders, air caste= navy fighters and space ships, water= caste diplomats and fire caste= soldiers and special ethereal caste = leaders yeah honouguards are allways max upgraded wether they are from mon´ka or kayuon side

[@FenekkuKitsune]

Bear in mind Jay, that anti-vehicle is NOT anti-structure. The crisis suit guard's missile launcher is anti-vehicle NOT anti-structure. There are few things that are anti-structure in the game.

[@treverwood34]

Sheild drones are very useful when I first started I did the same thing but now I use shield drones and they block all damage for a minute and recharge is quick

[@NikitaIgnatyev-vo5vh]

Yeah, actually, there's an a-click option in this particular mission: once you annihalate all the eldar forces, which is honestly not that hard, the only pain in the ass is the Avatar, you win automatically

[@silverstone1615]

Every damn time I played against the elder stronghold they would have gone WAY over the unit caps and build just infinite prisms. they had knock back so my infantry couldn’t get at them and my vehicles got focus fired. Such a pain to deal with

[@cpugwash7085]

@@silverstone1615 Yeah. If you're playing easy then assaulting the final citadel isn't too bad, if you're playing normal it's do-able but annoying, if you're playing hard it's an utter slog killing all the prisms.

[@FenekkuKitsune]

Just a heads up as well Jay, the reason the Broadsides are so awkward to use in combat is because they're not really supposed to be used in combat. They're the Tau equivalent of static defense. They hold positions, not push them.

[@cypher_30]

good episode just so you know for the future destroying the eldar main base ends the mission early so you don't have to waste time waiting for the timer to runout.

[@saschastange495]

Fire is Ground Forces, Air is the Air Force/ space Force, Water are the leaders and earth are the Builders... at leat i think so

[@ralanbek207]

i use the battelsuits (the one that you can lock down) as a sort of mobile turrets

[@KazModah]

Did you tried the War of the Ring mode in Battle for the Middle Earth 2 (and ROTWK)? Is really similar to dark crusade but with multiplayer

[@hub1986]

Jayborino the great conqueror :) GG M8 GN Also these kind of games i find more fun taking over the entire world like BFME is really fun

[@rainerzufall5741]

ouh sir, always glad to see someone playing this game, but: there are mods for video settings eg more zooming-out. this is... kinda hard to watch when you're used to "better"

[@Storm2war]

I always wondered..Tau empire are a fanatical race?

[@erberor8007]

FOR THE GREATER GOOD

[@ivanivanovic5586]

Compared to Imperium and Chaos, I'd say no, even in lore.

[@ThePyrusKnight]

Normally? Yes but nowhere near the memetic ecclesiarch or inquisitor. Until Ethereal mind contr- *cough* influencing phero *cough* ...charisma, Ethereal charisma gets involved. THEN they're that fanatical if not more.

[@andrewgreeb916]

1:00:50 conflict of interest, the tau shouldn't destroy the tau

[@haingyen2695]

You have to play in easy difficulty so one of the race will kill all the other end will very difficult to reach to they base if you play normal difficult the AI will keep fight each other until you go killer they base so you can open all the gear for your commanders

[@sherklastic6073]

yeah!! show those eldar whos boss!!

[@blightfang5148]

i think i perfer how soulstorm did strongholds it makes it a real fight to get the campaign map bonus like for instance the eldar base unlocks rapid movement on the campaign map

[@kooper7624]

What the autotune eldar don

[@LordDarkhelm]

Huh. I think my Dark Crusade was bugged when I played it. My listening posts never persisted between matches on a given map. Only non-point structures did. Funny.

[@s.m.2523]

If you enjoy this kind of campaign you may want to try some of the Total War games since that's pretty much from where it's from. It's a different kind of RTS (with quite a bit of 4X elements).

[@FenekkuKitsune]

I never fully played Dark Crusade so I never saw the Eldar stronghold... This seems rather stupid. I much prefer the way Soulstorm did it, wherein you actually face the faction whose stronghold you're fighting - no bullshit. Why would the Eldar have enemies in their stronghold? That's stupid.

[@JayborinoPlays]

Because it's incredibly fitting for the Eldar to manipulate other factions to fight for them. I cant think of anything MORE Eldar than that.

[@FenekkuKitsune]

@@JayborinoPlays It is fitting with how manipulative they are, yes, but it just seems stupid to have enemy forces that could turn on you at any moment in your actual stronghold. Plus gameplay wise you should be facing Eldar not... other factions.

[@Brutalyte616]

@@FenekkuKitsune It's mainly to slow the Eldar down by scaling back their presence on the map so you don't get slaughtered immediately. Eldar are relatively weak in the early game when their unit variety and numbers are limited, but once they get rolling they're incredibly strong due to their high damage output and speed, and in a wave type mission like the strongholds where the Eldar already have all their units available, you'd constantly be on the backfoot. Having the Orks as a buffer gives you some breathing room, forcing the Eldar to attack with skirmishing units like the Warp Spiders, rather than just marching a deathball into your base. And it makes sense lorewise because this 'stronghold' is less a fortress like the other factions' bases and more like a staging point, as the Eldar aren't really big on static defense. Plus, these are Craftworld Eldar and not Drukhari, so in a narrative sense they can't justify having a huge army either and ironically are using the Orks as unwitting auxiliaries to help alleviate their smaller army size. Also it teaches you that Orks and Eldar are great together, because the Orks can drown the enemy in bodies and establish a decent defensive perimeter through their towers while the Eldar build up and look for decisive openings or cheesy tactics, like relocating their entire base behind the Orks. Naturally such -BULLSHIT- _sophisticated_ plays are lost on the AI, but Eldar are one of those factions that you can't really play well unless you really know what you're doing, and in the hands of a good player they will tear you to shreds and leave you wondering if they're hacking with their seeming omnipresence.

[@FenekkuKitsune]

@@Brutalyte616 Yet, Soulstorm's stronghold did it, and did it well. No other races, just Eldar, harassing you from numerous angles and generally just being annoying PoS that can overwhelm you if you're not paying attention.