It’s well-known that Tactical Marines are underperforming in 1v1; Relic already has plans to adjust the Tacticals in the first balance patch. However, Space Marines are still a viable race thanks to the strength of its Barracks units: the Scouts (the "lightning") and the Assault Marines (the "thunder"). Check out this new Space Marine guide by @Sparkskite :
https://www.gamereplays.org/dawnofwar3/portals.php?show=page&name=dawnofwar3-lightning-and-thunder-assault-marine-scout-opening
Comments
Kharneth
I'm going to give these strategies a try and increase my number of scout units while also trying out more land speeders in the mid game instead of going ASM -> Dreadnoughts -> Predators. I think I'll still end with predators, though.
Netput
Any luck with it @Kharneth ?
Prokrastinator
The tacticals may be underparforming but the impact (literally) of the assaults is way too strong. The squad itself is already a strong melee unit, but with a jump ability with good damage, a low cooldown and 2 (!) charges for just 500 RP? Relic please. -.-
As an Orc player I absoutely can't do anything else then leave the middle of the map to my opponent if he builds early assault marines til I have teched to looters (which are still easy counterable with assaults if the marine just micros well). To compete with them Ineed the hardest micro and scouting while the marine just has to pump assaults and press Q. That doesn't feel balanced.
Kharneth
It'd be nice if people who were complaining about ASM would enter the conversation with accurate information. The jumps do not deal damage, only the doctrine does. I've found a lot more Ork players learned how to compete againsts SM and Eldar. Orks have gotten much harder over the last week for some reason.
As for this strategy, I tried it but it didn't fit as neatly as my other one. I just don't care for land speeders. I'll usually skip T2 and go from ASM/Scouts to Predators. Land Speeders do seem like they'd fit well, but idk, I wasn't able to get the most out of them.
KotCR
Land Speeders are really good, it just takes time to learn to use them. Played a game today were I lost the bulk of my army twice (Eldar...), and still managed to make a come-back due to some good economy-pillaging with a pair of Land Speeders (that I split up, naturally), and a Whirlwind with a few Deathstorms to keep him away from my Shield Generators with what remained of my force, till he could no longer keep up with my army size (then I pushed).
Apparently they gave my opponent cancer too, according to his in-game chat. So that's always good.
The irony when an Eldar player using mass Doctrined DA + SS complains about imbalance...
Netput
Land Speeders are hard to use indeed. Once you get the hang of it however, they are really strong!
HohesHaus
Landspeeders are too strong for their cost. So the strat is focusing on the strongest units of SM. Have fun dealing with invisible dashing Banshees. Your army will get wrecked within 2 seconds, and then your only hope is the landspeeder.
Diogen84
Landspeedders are dying from wraith and bastaz extremely fast-1or2shots. And btw falcons deals much more damage. Are falcons capable to transport troops? Could you heal with it your troops? So what is OP?
Don't just a-click the whole army on enemy. Leave some force for protection.
If marine's tech is not as garbage as tsm, grenades and LDS it doesn't mean that it is OP. Dont also do just a DA or ranger spam. Marines have to do smth against you and landspeders with asm are the only possible answers at least for now. If they suck with everything people won't play marines at all.
Stoner
Can't believe Eldar couldn't counter Speeders... WG or few Specters should be able to deal with them without any problems and real quick, no?
KotCR
@Stoner
Yeah, the guy I faced didn't even try to build Shadow Spectres. After his DA got wiped, he attempted to counter them with Dark Reapers. Not totally stupid, due to true damage, but Dark Reapers aren't going to take on Land Speeders alone if you just try to match them squad-for-Speeder. He also tried Falcons, also not totally dumb (though if he can afford Falcons, he can probably afford Wraithguard), but that wasn't going to work out once I added the Multi-Meltas.
Just goes to show that alot of people playing Eldar at the mo are merely playing the meta though because they heard it's really strong, and they don't know what they're are doing with the race beyond that. Yet obviously, despite this lack of understanding of the race, they are clearly used to winning, else they wouldn't get so angry when they lose and quite simply get outplayed.