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o / / /\ \ \__ _ _ __| |__ __ _ _ __ ___ _ __ ___ ___ _ __ o
o \ \/ \/ / _` | '__| '_ \ / _` | '_ ` _ \| '_ ` _ \ / _ \ '__| o
o \ /\ / (_| | | | | | | (_| | | | | | | | | | | | __/ | o
o \/ \/ \__,_|_| |_|_|_|\__,_|_| |_| |_|_| |_| |_|\___|_| o
o | || | / _ \ /\ /\ o
o | || |_| | | |/ //_/ o
o |__ _| |_| / __ \ o
o |_| \___/\/ \/ o
o ______ _______ ___ _ _ _ o
o (______) (_______) / __) (_)(_)(_) o
o _ _ _____ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _| |__ _ _ _ _____ ____ o
o | | | (____ | | | | _ \ | | | (_ __) | || || (____ |/ ___) o
o | |__/ // ___ | | | | | | | | |___| | | | | || || / ___ | | o
o |_____/ \_____|\___/|_| |_| \_____/ |_| \_____/\_____|_| o
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
O FAQ by: The Spelunker O
o Copyright - 2004 - 2005 o
O All Rights Reserved. O
o Email: lance3335@bellsouth.net o
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This guide may not be used for any purpose other than personal use without
the written consent of the author, and the only e-mail address which may give
this consent is lance3335@bellsouth.net. Those who violate this should know
that they are breaking US copyright law. If you see this guide being hosted
on a site besides http://www.gamefaqs.com/ it is being done so illegally.
Please contact me if this is the case.
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-{==========================================================================}-
Table of Contents
-{==========================================================================}-
I. Introduction
II. Version History
III. Campaign
iiia. Space Marines
a1. Tutorial
a2. Mission One - Planet Fall
a3. Mission Two - Infiltration
a4. Mission Three - Under Siege
a5. Mission Four - Destroy the Xenos
a6. Mission Five - A New Lead
a7. Mission Six - Into the Maw
a8. Mission Seven - Sacrifice
a9. Mission Eight - The Chapel
a10. Mission Nine - Unholy Ceremony
a11. Mission Ten - An Old Friend
a12. Mission Eleven - All Out War
IV. Codes
iva. Console(FPS)
ivb. Level Skip
-{==========================================================================}-
Although Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War doesn't raise any bars for real-time
strategy, or even introduce anything new, it stays true to its series for the
most part and will undoubtedly woo a lot of gamers with its dazzling special
effects. It's a high-explosive, high-energy game to be sure. It also
emphasizes tactics far more than it does building and economics, and may bear
the most similarities to the recent RTS Warcraft 3, although its unique blend
of science-fiction and fantasy ensures individuality.
The major letdown for fans of single player strategy is that only one campaign
was included with the original release. It's said that more await the patient
gamer in future expansions, but no one can be sure. If you plan to get lasting
value out of it, you'll do best to come equipped for online play. Single
player skirmishes may be fun if you're into that kind of thing (the AI is
surprisingly dumb), but the single campaign is not something worth investing
in. It's best used as a precursor to online play.
That said, the purpose of this guide was originally going to be filling a FAQ
bounty, but it has peeked the author's interest enough to encourage perhaps
further dissection of what makes it tick, and further, how to succeed in it.
Having had extensive experience in previous real-time strategy games, the
author ensures even his campaign strategies to offer proper exercises and tips
towards eventual exceleration in areas of strategy and speed.
Things get a bit tougher here, but not by much. If you're a veteran of real-
time strategy, this one should be cake. Use this mission to practice your
hotkeys. Use them for everything possible. "." moves to the next Servitor, "
ctl + (any number)" assigns a building or unit to that number, and pressing
that number twice centers in on whatever is assigned to it. These are your
most important hotkeys.
But also practice building, training and upgrading with hotkeys. In
particular, the "b" key when centered on a Servitor brings up the build menu.
The variety of hotkeys for specific buildings can be seen from there. Space
Marine Units can be trained from the barracks with "S". The barracks should
also be assigned a number until you get a sufficient force.
As for the mission at hand, you start out with an incomplete Stronghold and
some scattered troops. Once the Stronghold is built, you'll be asked to build
Chapel-Barracks, an Armory, a Plasma Generator and then Listening Posts on the
three surrounding strategic points. You start with two Servitors, which is
nice. Switch between them with ".".
Continue moving your hotkeyed units around to capture the strategic points.
Some puny forces will raid from the north eventually. They're easily disposed
of. Later there will a wall breach to the east. This is cake, too.
After you've built-up, it's rather easy to sweep the entire map. Just head
north and conquer things as you go. You'll need to wipe out all of the orc
camps you see. The main ones are in the center and upper-center portions of
the map. The one in the top-central portion will require at least two Space
Marine Units to take. But you should have at least three -- plus whatever
scattered Imperial forces you've picked up along the way.
This mission deviates a bit from traditional RTS imperialism with the concept
of espionage. It's pretty fun, and definitely more challenging. Start out by
hotkeying your scout unit to "1" and then pressing "I". This will enable
Infiltration. Move southwesterly along the land bridge and pass through the
orc groups. Do not engage them. Move to the red target. This was your first
objective. Another scout group will join you here. Use this new group to
snipe the orcs up ahead. That's your second objective.
Past that group of orcs will be a camp. This can either be dealt with my
sniping the leader in the camp (he sees through infiltration) or "waiting for
them to pass" as the game suggest. I prefer the former, since even when they
do pass, they're still in your way. Plus you'll need practice sniping leaders,
as the next leader you see is a new objective. He's on the elevated bridge at
the waterworks, just past the camp. Once you take him out, the main forces
storm in.
When this happens, your next objective is to kill off all the orcs that were
gathered there, and then build a base on it This includes a Stronghold,
Chapel-Barracks, Armory, Plasma Generator and two Listening Posts. Once that's
done, you can proceed with your killing. The first few battles and camps will
be simple, but there is one that requires a lot of strategy to take. You'll
know it by the two heavy cover ditches flanking its entrance.
The idea here is to draw the orcs out a little bit at a time, and to only
fight in the ditches. With the heavy cover behind you, and a strong army, you
should be able to wipe anything that comes out before it even gets to you.
However, if you leave the ditches, or advance too quickly, you will likely
die.
The two main camps you need to destroy in the "cleanse the valley" objective
are at the south-central and middle-east portions of the screen. These may
contain powerful Orkish vehicles called "Killa Cans" which will reak havok on
unupgraded or small armies. To counter this, always travel as one mass. Make
sure to upgrade your Squad Cap at the base, too, and eventually do the
Monastery upgrade on your Stronghold. This will be required to complete
certain objectives.
After taking out the two main camps, you'll find that there are scattered
camps left to destroy both on the mid-west sides of the map and just above the
Waterworks. But these are small and insignificant ones. That's good, though,
because you still need practice with your hotkeys. Make sure you're using them
for everything, especially rallying troops with a sergeant, "Y", (only after
Monastery upgrade) and bringing in reinforcements, "R".
Also label your Chapel-Barracks with "8" for quick access to town and
replacement Space Marine Squads when needed. Don't forget to make waypoints
(right click on an area while selecting a unit-producing building) to ease up
your micro-managing load. This scenario isn't particularly hard once you get
built-up.
The conditions for your start in this mission are a bit weird. You have a
base, but it consists mostly of buildings that haven't been built yet. Don't
be deceived -- those heavy defense buildings are still incomplete. Once
they're built, they'll actually shoot stuff at attackers. The armory isn't
built either, and it's also hidden quite well (enough to make you build one of
your own, in fact)
You do have a barracks, stronghold, plasma generators, two builders and some
troops, though. You'll definitely need everything you've got. In fact, this
mission can quite easily cause you to have to restart once or twice if you're
still getting used to the hotkeys. Moving quick is important in it, although
this is all relative of course.
The best thing to do first, as always, is to hotkey your barracks("8" is a
good number). This will allow easy browsing of your base without having to
futz with the mini-map. Then do the same with the two groups of soldiers,
which are separated by opposing strategic points. Capture these as soon as
possible, too. Meanwhile your builders should be finishing the armory and
heavy turrets, as once the former is done, you can upgrade your stronghold to
a monastery and stockpile more troops.
Build Listening Posts on the strategic spots and upgrade them when you have a
Monastery. Also build Heavy Bolter Turrets around the left Listening Post when
it's up. All the while you should be fending off encroaching Orks from nearby
Heavy Cover ditches. Once you've gotten the Monastery, and fortified your
Listening Posts with several heavy turrets, it's time to start moving out. You
should have two groups of at least 3 Space Marine Squads each before you do
so.
Send one to the mid-western enemy base and the other directly up from the
right strategic point you started by. If you have to pass under a pipe to get
to a base with your western group, you're probably in the wrong area. There
are some nasty fortifications here that will take your combined forces to
capture. Instead, go more to the left to locate a smaller base.
One of your objectives is to locate a Machine Cult. This is actually very
close to the right strategic point your troops started at. It's towards the
bottom of the nearby enemy base. One or two Dreadnaughts will be waiting for
you, and with a Servitor and an upgrade from your Stronghold, you can produce
more of these deadly guys (think "Killa Cans" from Mission Two).
The rest of the mission is primarily hunting down remnants of enemy camps, the
orcs that inhabit them, and blowing it all up. The only problem you'll run
into will be if the enemy starts to mass vehicles of their own before you've
amassed a significant enemy force. This might force a restart. Otherwise it
should be fairly smooth sailing if you've picked up on hotkeys so far. Look
for a big base at the top of the screen if you're stuck on how to complete the
final objective.
This mission appears to be a basic assault one at first, but once things get
going it turns out to be the largest-scale mission yet. It's not particularly
trickier than the last one, but it does require a lot more manpower. However,
you're rarely in danger of losing.
Start out by selecting all of your Assault Marine Squads and labeling them "1
". Label your Whirlwinds as "5". With the Whirlwinds, start raining down
missiles on all of the nearby structures. You should be able to take out
almost everything before having to land with your squads. Eventually, press "
1", "j" and then select the area below the cliff. Your squads will jump down
there and finish off the remainder of the Orks.
Upon doing so, a civilization pops up. You need to build your most complex
base yet here. Since you don't start with massive amounts of resources, you'll
have to build at least three additional Plasma Generators, plant Listening
Posts anywhere you can and, of course, complete building your Chapel-Barracks,
Stronghold (subsequently upgrading it to Monastery) and Armory. As always,
label the Chapel-Barracks with "7" or "8". Eventually it'll be suggested that
you build a Machine Cult as well. Label these with "9" or "10".
Orks will somehow attack you through the trees near the top of your base. It's
a good idea to upgrade the Listening Post up there as quickly as possible and
station your commander and librarian there as well. They're useless early on,
as they can't attach to Assault Marine Squads. Once you get a good military
force built up, though, you'll want to take over the base the orcs are (at
least preliminarily) coming from. This is not far from your starting base, and
there's one accessible Listening Post separating it from you. Another
Listening Post is occupied and resting on a nearby cliff.
As you'll soon learn, it's a good idea to take Whirlwinds with you when
conquering towns. While massing seemingly great hordes of troops early on cut
the mustard, it's now becoming more and more crucial to minimize losses. Plus
a lot more hostile buildings are showing up in enemy camps. Label the
Whirlwinds with either "5" or "6" to reserve 1-4 for ground troops. Move them
in just ahead of your land troops, and use F1(hold ground) with your land
troops to keep them at bay. The idea being, of course, not to get anything in
range of hostile enemy structures.
This camp should fall fairly easily, and once you've entirely captured it, you
should place the troops not securing strategic points (there are two in the
camp) at the beachhead to the north. Also begin moving Servitors to the
defeated enemy camp to build up there, as requested. Trust me -- it's worth
it. Make sure to keep up with Armory upgrades as well, as they can
sufficiently bolster your army's overall strength. Also, keep in mind that not
only can Servitors construct buildings, but that they can also repair
vehicles. This will help prevent wasting time and resources.
Once you've gotten your act together, start marching through the water to the
next camp, which will also need to be secured with Whirlwinds prior to
unleashing your troops. It's still cake, though. The next camp is the one you
need a lot of muscle for. For this, bring in a large number of Whirlwinds as
well at least twelve, fully reinforced marine squads. You'll know why once you
cross the land bridge up ahead.
There's an enormous mammoth-like creature there, with ridiculous combat
abilities and well over 15,000 hit points. It's also accompanied by the not-
quite-so-strong-but-still-nasty Warboss and several of his thugs. This battle
can potentially last 15 minutes. The mammoth in particular will thrash your
units, and can effortlessly kill a single troop just by touching it. It's
required that you keep a close eye on your troops during the battle.
This can be done by selecting whatever number they're keyed to and clicking
back and forth on the pictures residing on the bottom panel. Just keep tapping
"r", adding replacement sergeants -- "l" -- and rallying morale -- "y" -- when
necessary. Although this battle is supremely tough, especially if you're not
expecting it or going in unprepared, it's also not a dangerous one by this
point in the mission. Even if you do lose, you'll have so many resources and
back-up troops built up that mounting another assault will be simple.
Truthfully, it's smooth sailing once the mammoth is gone. The rest of the
camps are big, but nothing compared to what you just faced. Simply stockpile
some Whirlwinds and proceed to destroy the rest of the settlements on the map.
If you're at a loss for where the last one is, try checking the top-right area
of the map, where there's a small, hidden passage along the water-side. That
about does it for the Orks; now, about these Chaos Troops...
Wow, the objective for this mission is right across the screen!
...you wish.
In terms of time consumption, mission five is a bit lower than #4, but it's
still no walk in the park. As usual, there's no direct route to completing the
stage. You'll inevitably explore the whole map before you reach the upper-left
corner. But it's still not too hard. There are a couple of key areas where
massive battles occur, and a surprise mission objective, but you should be
ready for those when the time comes.
The only you presently have to worry about is capturing a Listening Post, as
you start with none. There's a good place to do that not far from your town.
Attach one of the leaders to your only Space Marine Squad and head in that
direction. In the meantime, start creating more Space Marine Squads from your
Chapel-Barracks. Build an armory as well; you'll want to upgrade to monastery
and subsequently train Scout Infiltration rather quickly.
Once you get a Listening Post up, some Plasma Generators in your city and a
decent military force, move to the next strategic point. It's around here that
you'll encounter some Orks. It turns out that they're actually running though.
You can easily dispose of them. Get a Listening Post up after doing so. You
should also have a monastery by now, so upgrade both of your Listening Posts.
It's also a good idea to place guards at the one you most recently captured,
since that'll be a target for attack later on.
Get a Machine Cult up wherever you can, too -- the closer the better. Continue
exploring the map with your scouts, and you will notice that it's not actually
the forces of Chaos here. They are actually Eldars. And they've got things
called Warpgates all over the place. Your first encounter with them will be
below the second strategic point you captured, in the snow. It will be an easy
battle. You should have your Machine Cult up by the time you finish.
Start producing Rhino Transports, "t", from there, by pressing the number
which corresponds to the cult(9 or 0 is suggested) and queuing some. These
will help you complete your next objective, which will be triggered if you try
to proceed any further. Apparently creatures called Dark Reapers have set up
camp all along the cliff-side, and the only way to reach them in reasonable
safety is through using transport cars.
It certainly makes sense, as by the time you head all the way right and see
the extent of their numbers, even your transports will have taken a beating.
That's cool though -- we're going to destroy them anyway. Get off at the end
of the cliff and pile out towards the reapers. They're not so tough when they
don't have a great advantage over you. One of your objectives will be
completed once they've been eradicated.
Next on the list is knocking off the gathering of Eldars nearby where you
dismounted from your transports. Destroy your transports while you're at it,
as they're too slow to be practical for routine ground travel (and they take
up useful vehicle slots). Once again, upgrade this strategic point to a
Listening Post once you've acquired it. Don't worry about stationing guards
because we're going to continue marching.
By this time you should have both a significant squad and vehicle cap. Max
both of them out with Space Marine Squads and -- my preference -- Hell
Dreadnoughts. These two types make a deadly combination. Make sure all of your
potential leaders are attached to a group to maximize effectiveness. Also
check your Armory to be sure you've researched all of the troop-strengthening
technologies. Then proceed.
The path you passed earlier leads up into the central area of map. This is
where the harder battles of this mission occur. Two in particular are brutal:
the one towards the central-right edge of the map, and the one just before
your original objective point (upper-right corner) With both of these, it's
often best to keep your troops in nearby heavy cover locations while
attempting to lure the enemy with Hell Dreadnoughts. The worst that can happen
is your vehicles getting destroyed, but by and by they're fairly durable, so
that's much less of an issue than losing your entire ground army. The enemy
also doesn't have much invested in anti-vehicle weapons on this map.
Neatly, there's very little town matter to clear up around here. The only
place with much building resistance is -- surprise, surprise -- Ork-manned,
and towards the northeastern corner of the map. But it's a necessary evil, as
exterminating Orks is one of your goals. Thankfully your first encounter with
the bulk of enemies in there is easily remedied by waiting outside the orc
village in heavy cover ditches. From there it's easy to obliterate them as
they come running. All in all, this is another stage you shouldn't have a ton
of trouble with.
This is type of mission that beats into your head how important it is to not
spread yourself too thin. It's also incredibly long and trying. You start off
in the lower left corner. From here, you need to make your way east and wipe
out the Eldars. You'll be instructed to build a settlement not long after
that. Don't explore further east with your scouts, though, as someone up there
will detect them. Instead, continue building. Station guards at the west and
east ends of your base and number them separately, using the numbers 1 to 4.
Once you've gotten a good start building (set both Servitors on your
Stronghold to begin with) head northeast with some troops. After beating the
Eldars here, you should get a large allotment of Imperial troops and vehicles
to work with. You may need to move around a little before it happens. These
will sustain a small raid across the middle and central-west areas of the map.
But continue to keep troops on the east and west ends of your base.
In the meantime, build Listening Posts on both ends and post your separately
numbered armies there. Enemies appear from out of nowhere, and so it's
necessary to always be prepared. Don't beat yourself up trying to find them
since they don't actually originate from any particular place. They probably
just spawn on the edges of the map.
Do the monastery upgrade as soon as possible and then start upgrading your
Listening Posts for maximum Requisition. Build a Machine Cult and upgrade the
caps when you get a chance, but at the same time continue conquering
territory. The key rule, though, is to never leave territory undefended.
Naturally, this does become a bit boring since it will take a while before you
can divvy up your troops evenly enough to allow further advancement -- but
it's the only way to complete the stage. Leaving your base unattended and
attempting a full charge would be foolish. You'd get snuffed out at the dig
site, if you even made it there.
By this time you should have a firm handle on at least the middle strategic
point. Make sure to build a Listening Post there and upgrade it. Also take
note that you can actually upgrade Listening Posts twice by this point. Each
one is worth it and pays off in the end (just so long as you protect them from
Ork and Eldar raiders) You'll want to, at some point, to move as far east as
you can go with the guard you have stationed to the east of your base. Have
the guard at the opposite end take up the slack while they're absent.
There's a small niche in the forest here where the Eldars have a base. Wipe it
out and then move back to your post. Definitely take the central-west
strategic point at this time, if you haven't already. It's one of the few on
the map that you can leave undefended and still keep -- well, as long as you
upgrade it twice. Also consider exploring the central-east portion of the map
if you've amassed some vehicles from your Machine Cult and upgraded your army
sufficiently. It's a lot of fighting, but it will bring up one of your
secondary objectives and also open up another strategic point, which you
should take.
The real action all occurs at the top part of the map. For this you will need
an enormous, well-organized legion of men. It's best to include Hell
Dreadnoughts as the vehicle accompaniment in this troop, since they'll be your
main counter against nasty enemy vehicles like Fire Prisms. But certainly
don't neglect the tanks you got earlier, assuming they haven't already been
blown to smithereens.
There's a ramp that leads to this section of the map, and you should only
approach it when ready. The battle that occurs there is hell in itself, but
further past is even worse. Trying to build Listening Posts anywhere around
there would be futile. It's so bad that you might even want to consider
skimping on defenses at the base to bolster your raiding party. But do so at
your discretion since Orks never seem to stop their assault.
My suggestion is to take a squadron of 8 Hell Dreadnoughts. Leave two Space
Marine Squadrons at your main base, one Space Marine Squadron at the middle
outpost, some troops at the central-right outpost, and take the rest of the (
fully-upgraded) force with you. Punch through the top-middle outpost, which
should be relatively easy with that kind of manpower. Then head to the right,
where the digging site and the flashing star is. This area is almost entirely
vehicles. To counter it, you'll need to send all of your Hell Dreadnoughts in
first. You might even want to build a forward Machine Cult at your central-
right base to restock this troop.
Target the Fire Prisms first and then the Grav vehicles. Ideally the tall,
lanky vehicles won't come out until later, but if they do, you'll want to send
your main troop in to distract them. Keep a close eye on troop count and
morale during this battle. "R" bolsters troops and "Y" rallies them -- raising
morale. You should be able to pull it off, but you might need to queue up some
extra Hell Dreadnoughts from your forward Machine Cult to finish the job. When
you do, and you destroy the nearby buildings, the mission will be over.
Back to the standard mission format here. You start with a Stronghold, two
Plasma Generators and a Chapel-Barracks; plus your Librarian, Force Commander
and two Space Marine Squads. Very basic, yet easy to adjust to. As usual, key
barracks to "7", your army to "1", and get to work. Start out by building an
Armory with your Servitor. Send your army to capture the southern strategic
point. Train a servitor from your Stronghold and send him to build a Listening
Post on that southern point once it's captured.
Start training Space Marine Squads from your Chapel-Barracks. Send your army
to the north to capture that strategic point. Key your secondary army -- the
squads being trained from the Chapel-Barracks to "2". These will be the
defenders of your home. When you've hit your original squad cap, queue up a
higher squad cap and send all of your armies to the western strategic point.
There will be a lot of enemies and vehicles here, but that's okay. Once you
take them out, the Avatar should appear.
This guy is supposedly some kind of boss, but you should be able to wipe him
out easy. If he starts attacking a specific unit, just run that unit around in
circles. Eventually the Avatar will retreat, and you should follow him. Hunt
him down and kill him. Then send "2" back to guard your base. Leave "1" at the
western strategic point. In the meantime, you should be upgrading to Monastery
and upgrading your Listening Posts. Also build a Listening Post on the western
strategic point. Make sure to keep your units fully reinforced as always.
Once you've got about three squads in your "2" unit at base, send them to get
the east strategic point and, from there, the relic beyond (it's signified by
a yellow dot on the mini-map) Sweep around with your "1" unit, too, and take
the nearby yellow and purple dots. You only need to take one more relic to
complete your objective, now, and you can also build a Thermal Plasma
Generator on top of the purple pile. This will generate extreme amounts of
Power.
Make sure to continue researching unit techs at your armory as well. There are
a lot of them to get, and they'll all come in handy. Also, of course, get the
techs on your Plasma Generators and Listening Posts. In this stage, two
upgrades on a Listening Post will provide all the defense you need, at least
on the southern half of the map. Eventually you'll want to migrate all of your
units to the next relic, but not before you put up a Machine Cult, max all of
your unit/vehicles caps and train an army of Hell Dreadnoughts. Completely
buffing up your squads is a plus, too.
When ready, and only when ready, go up the left corner of the screen to take
the relic. Only stop long enough to capture it since you've got your armies
maxxed at this point. Also, don't keep any troops at home. Let your many fully
upgraded Listening Posts do the job of defense. This stage isn't like the last
one. Push your armies towards the next strategic point. It turns out that this
one is actually a special kind of point, in that if you hold it for two
minutes, the bridge gate will lower. However, some enemies will attempt to
thwart you in the meantime.
Still, do it anyways. The enemies that mess with you before opening the bridge
are nothing compared to what awaits you at the edge of bridge. Also, take note
that a lot of enemies pop up all over the map when you're holding that
strategic point initially. Back at town you should be considering building the
new buildings, Sacred Artifact and Orbital Relay, as well as upgrading your
Stronghold to a Fortress Monastery. With all relics captured, this will allow
you to train your strongest units. However, that won't be necessary on normal
difficulty. You can push through with maxxed caps of regular units and
vehicles. And that's what you should do.
There'll be a large scuffle before you fully cross the bridge. Keep an eye on
your units and make sure your vehicles aren't too far behind before attacking.
Proceed to the next strategic point after you've won, where you'll be
informed, "This is a good place to build a secondary base." Maybe so, but
again, it's irrelevant on normal. Push towards the monument objective (the
flashing area on the map). Make sure all of your units are caught up before
you reach the stairs leading up to it. It's nothing grave, but you fight from
a significantly limited area, so it's important to hit them all at once.
The main army guarding the monument is a bunch of shooters standing in a
circle, which isn't bad. They can be nasty, but once again, you should be able
to take them out with little trouble. This mission is easier than six.
The first part of this mission may be confusing initially, but it's actually
not that bad. What you need to do is build up a medium-sized army of Assault
Marine Squads at your initial base and then jump across the chasm. From there,
you have to head to the base on the far right of the screen and capture it.
Once you get there, the Force Commander, et al, will show up as well.
But you should capture everything on the side of the chasm you start on first.
This goes hand-in-hand with building up an army, though, so don't worry. Plus
there won't be a lot of resistance to begin with. Begin by constructing a
Plasma Generator, then Armory and Listening Post. Go around with your Assault
Marine Squad and three leaders to capture the surrounding strategic points.
Start producing more Assault Marine Squads from your Chapel-Barracks once you
get the resources. Also upgrade to monastery, upgrade Listenings Posts, learn
Plasma Generator and Listening Posts techs, etc. -- this stuff should begin to
seem like second nature by now.
Ideally, you should get to Fortress Monastery by the time your Assault Marine
Squads jump, but if you're more tech-centric you might only get close. The
ideal place to jump from is the second platform down (in other words, the one
the imperial army lost at -- you'll have to fight your way to the base, hence
why we built up an army) The base is basically southeast from there.
Once you arrive, as said, your leaders immediately appear there. This is good.
You should start capturing the strategic points here, too. There's even a Slog
Point nearby that you can build a Thermal Plasma Generator on. But what you
should really focus on is pumping out Predators from your two Machine Cults
there. The longer you wait around, the more troops that will start to pound at
your doors. Your ground forces should be sufficient by now, at least on normal
difficulty, as you only need about 5 or 6 fully upgraded Assault Marine
Squads. But you should train some Space Marine Squads to guard behind you just
in case there is an attack. And there might be.
You might also want to leave a Predator or two behind. Taking four to five
with you is essential, though. There are a lot of enemies outside the chapel,
plus the door is hard to break through, and even when you do get through,
there's another battle waiting for you there with some traitorous Imperial
troops. This battle won't be much tougher, if at all, than some of your
previous battles, but it can sneak up on you quick so don't give your troops a
waypoint and then just look away and forget about them. This isn't the kind of
map you want to make big mistakes on because, as the enemies attacking you
increase, you realize just how useless those Heavy Gun Turrets can be.
This mission is rather annoying because all throughout you're stuck with three
squads of Imperial guards, which suck. On the plus side, it requires less
effort. Once you get a base built up that's big enough to produce Predators,
you're pretty much set. Start out by producing the usual stuff. You can't
control any of the imperial tanks yet; they'll be given to you gradually. The
guards you start with can't capture strategic points, either. Make a Space
Marine Squad quickly to counter this. Attach Inquisitor Toth to it as well.
It's essential to post your guard on the outer two strategic points facing the
east early on. Post the Imperial guards at one and the Space Marine Squad
headed by the inquisitor at the other. This will allow you to hold four
strategic points early on. What you're waiting on, primarily, is the Imperial
tank's availability. You can lessen this downtime by going for Machine Cult
and Fortress Monastery early. That way you can be producing Predators while
you wait.
The reason we need all of these tanks is because, first of all, you need all
the units you can get. But, second, and majorly, there are Heavy Gun Turrets
surrounding each of the relics, which you're required to capture in this
mission. Sending ground troops in would be a waste of time. So send your tanks
in first chance you get. You'll want to have ground accompaniment too. It
might also be a good idea to leave some defenders at your base. You will
almost certainly be attacked while abroad.
After capturing the first relic, the Force Commander's base will appear on the
opposite corner of the map from your base. While it's hinted at that you
should maybe build a base here, it's not necessary. What few troops you will
be able to produce with the Imperial guards, Space Marine Squad and Force
Commander's Terminators will be easily managed with a single base. Instead,
just suicide these Servitors and send the Force Commander and his three
Terminator squadrons up to meet with the main unit.
If you're going to attack a relic with these guys, you'll probably want to
have some Predator accompaniment, but on normal it might not be necessary.
Either way, continue capturing all of the relics. Defending them is a good
idea, but it's not always possible since taking them over can be a task in
itself. However, once you finally do capture them, you'll need to find a way
to divide your forces evenly between all four relics, as enemies will start to
assault you.
I like to put all the Imperial guards at one, half of my tanks at another, the
other half at another and then the Force Commander and his squads at the other
half at another and then the Force Commander and his squads at the last.
If the demon squadrons teleport to one relic in particular, I move the
Inquistor's group to assist. And just pray that the relic he just left won't
be taken over behind my back. If worse comes to worse, you can always repeat
the process. Inquisitor Toth basically needs time to break the spell, but he
can attempt it as many times as he wants.
This just might be your first strictly kill-'em-all mission.
It requires careful resourcing of units and requisition/power to get a head-
start in, but when you do, you'll be one step ahead of the game. Start by
building two Plasma Generators. Group your barracks with "7" and your unit and
two leaders with "1". Send them to the closest strategic point. Don't spend
resources on another Servitor.
When your Servitor finishes building the generators, get to work on a
Listening Post. Meanwhile, make a waypoint with your armies to the westerly
strategic point. Begin training two Space Marine Squads from your barracks. As
the Listening Posts get built, upgrade them as quickly as possible. This will
prevent you from having to stand around and guard them. On a large map like
this, being able to cover a lot of ground quickly is important.
Send your Servitor to build a Listening Post on the western strategic point
now. Keep your armies around only long enough to get an upgrade installed
before moving on. Then go to the eastern strategic point. It, too, is
unguarded. Repeat the process. The relic above your base is next. Capture this
with your armies while you build another Plasma Generator at the base.
You should also upgrade to a Monastery at your Stronghold. Train the increased
resource gathering techs -- "e" and u" -- at both your Plasma Generators and
Listening Posts. Upgrade Bionics ("t") and Target Finding ("t") at the armory
as well. By now, the relic should be captured; don't bother guarding it.
Instead, move your armies to the strategic point just west of it. Begin
capturing this and send your Servitor up in that direction.
At some point, you may be attacked by a large Minotaurian creature called
Bloodthirster. Don't sweat. This guy is just as dumb as the rest of the big
boss AIs. To defeat him simply run the unit he's attacking in circles.
Unbelievably, he'll follow them around endlessly while the rest of your troops
light him up. Keep a close eye on the relic at all times, though, even when
Bloodthirster is attacking. If you lose it, it will take a while to get it
back, and our goal is to train Terminators eventually.
That said, building a Machine Cult, Fortress Monastery, Sacred Artifact and
Orbital Relay is of the essence in the near future. But first you'll want to
max out your Plasma Generator quota. Power will always be low while you're
pumping out Predators. Also make sure to research all available techs as you
progress from Monastery -> Fortress Monastery. Not having them is just dumb.
Once you get some Predators in your army, it's time to scour the map.
Predators are the ideal choice for this since they can wipe out armed
Listening Posts with minimal casualties. Space Marine Squads are too flimsy,
and we don't have Terminators yet. A good way to start is just by visiting
strategic points. Nine times out of ten, that'll be where Chaos forces are
based at. Isador himself is based in the upper-mid area of the map. You'll
need to destroy both.
Once you gain a large amount of ground around your home base, it's safe to
send your Space Marine Squads out to attack the enemy. It's also a good idea
to Deep Strike your Terminator squads(click on their icons in the barracks) to
the enemy base and split up with them as well. This way you can kill the enemy
as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don't worry about buildings though.
For the most part, it's not necessary to destroy them. Only worry about them
if they can potentially give rise to more troops.
You start here with a reasonably nice base, plus the Eldar for allies, for
what they're worth. The only objective is to kill the Daemon Prince Sindri. On
normal, this can be done simply by advancing to Predators, but you have to
make haste, for Sindri will come and attack your base before long. In
actuallity, it's ideal that you fight him near your base since you'll be able
to set up fully upgraded Listening Posts and maybe even Heavy Gun Turrets
nearby, but you don't want to be caught unprepared. Just Predators and a bulky
gathering of Space Marine Squads should do it, though.
Start the mission out by capturing the nearest two strategic points while your
Servitor lays down some Plasma Generators. Build Listening Posts and get them
upgraded as soon as possible since Demon squads start teleporting near your
Listening Posts early on. You might also want to split your army up into two
parts at this stage of the game. Train another Space Marine Squad so they'll
be even splits.
Once you get both of the closest strategic points, move your army to the ones
higher up (there are two more worth capturing). Have your Servitor scout out
the Slag Point on the eastern edge of the map. Building a Thermal Plasma
Generator over this will help immensely. Meanwhile, upgrade your base to
Monastery, upgrade the extra requisition and power techs (at Listening Posts
and Plasma Generators respectively and likely the prelimanary techs at the
Armory -- Bionics, Plasma Swords, Target Finders, etc.
When your Servitor is done, build Listening Posts on the upper strategic
points as well. Don't worry about upgrading them all unless you're on a hard
difficulty, though, since we won't be leaving our base until we're ready to
win. Instead, start dropping down the buildings to prepare for Fortress
Monastery. These are a Machine Cult and Sacred Artifact. Once they're down,
make the necessary upgrade at your Stronghold.
Once this upgrade is complete, begin training the new power tech. Start
pumping Predators and Space Marine Squads like crazy. Do all the necessary
upgrades at your Armory to make your squads as strong as possible. Also
upgrade them fully and make sure your leaders are attached. Once you get about
five predators and have come close to reaching your (maxxed) infantry cap,
take off for the northeastern portion of the map. This is where Sindri is. And
he's not nearly as dumb as the Blood God. In fact, he's so fast that it's
impossible to run from him in time.
You can still try the circling techniques, but all too often he'll just use
the Maledictum to create a wave of damage around him. And once he does that,
he just moves on to the next squad, making it difficult to keep up. But you
should be able to catch him alone. In terms of enemy resistance, there's not a
lot besides the big boss on this map. And on normal, you shouldn't have much
trouble with him. He'll have a hell of a time destroying your Predators, and
your fully-upgraded Space Marine Squads will eat him up in the process.
Congratulations!
