How not to suck with SM?

WarNikolai · October 2015

I dont know if anyone will read this but nobody answered me in the "other" forum after a year.

Basically im level 53 with SM, after playing a lot of matches, I still totally suck. I still dont know how to approach. I like IG and have a good win rate of 82-34 with it. Its very straightforward with all of its heavy counters. Need disruption for antisupression? Catatchans. In fact they also have a powerful melee attack. Need antivehicle? Stormtoopers? Need to tie in melee? Ogryns (love them). Dont know what to buy? Ogryns or manticore are good to go. Even chimera is a good choice but i dont like these kinds of strategies.

However with SM im lost... They dont have a strong antisomething. All are weak counters. The only think that is somehow strong is the tactical squad but the problem here is that you have to CHOOSE, plasma or rockets? If you go plasma you will be good against infantry/heavy, but the moment hey pull out a vehicle you are fucked. If you go rocket vehicles arent a threat but regular infantry is. The problem here is that... These two are ok, but the rest? How can I counter two or three squads of chaos tzeench marines? Assault squad... They tie in melee but they also almost die trying. Or how to counter khorne CSM? Two or three squads. Maybe a suppression team... But then chaos lord rush in, tie it in melee and there we go again...

Every time i build a dreadnought he dies... BUt besides it i dont know what to build. Razor seems weak and very susceptible to get tied in melee, the support troops i mean. A librarian is a huge bullseye saying "SHOOT HERE". Gets focus fired... And also I get a bit confused using him, casting the spell, targeting, etc. About the plasma cannon, i dont really see its utility. Maybe against noobs... Or for defending, so its not useful.

I suppose i should use librarian with assault termies, the ones that always get killed when i summon them... But if i dont summon them, what should i do?

One more thing... The tier 1. What here? I have read something about "dual tacs", like if you should only buy 2 squads. But i usually build 3 squads, 2 tacs, one assault, ebcause if i dont, the enemy obliterates me.

This all is for team battle. things may change from 1v1, but the basic strategy is what i dont get...

Mr_Ruin · February 2016

Space Marines have so many different tactics, so I will try to explain just a few of them.

1. Start with buying TSM, buying a lot of power, and then either wait for ASM or buy upgrades for your hero (Iron Halo for FC, Bolter for Apo) and scouts and then buying ASM. You have a strong melee, can jump, but you need to be careful if enemy has melee that you do not jump too far and lose your ASM. Maybe support with shotguns, maybe with hero.

Go for Tier 2. Buy upgrades for hero (fist for FC, last armor for Tech, something for apo), and then either wait for dread (wouldn't recommend unless opponent with weak AT), or buy Liby. Buy more upgrades for units! SM should not have a lot of units, that destroys your economy pretty quickly.

Tier 3. If you have 350 red, buy termis, with them you can almost never go wrong - especially if you have a Librarian which can Gate of Infinity them back to safety.

2. Buy TSM and another scouts. Be careful with those scouts, they can easily be destroyed and your opponent will in most cases try to kill them first. Buy power, buy snipers. Now, this build needs a lot of moving around so you don't get caught and your snipers killed, but it is a great harassment build.

Then, some build additional TSM to bolster their staying power, while some go for T2. In T2 I recommend Dread, to get yourself a nice offensive unit, but be careful cause it is a big investment which can easily die. In most cases upgrade with melta, short range but does wonders on other vehicles and heavy inf. Upgrade your hero and units.

Tier 3. Yeah, buy Termis. LR is too slow if caught with nuke, a lot of AT or Nobs with invulnerability, and Pred does not have enough health to survive last fights in team battles.

3. This build rarely works but still, can be interesting from time to time, except against PC, that here demolishes it hard. Build TSM, build another TSM, buy shield for FC, shoot your opponents while they cannot suppress you and do less damage, buy some upgrade for scouts to counter whatever opponent has more (melee or ranged), and just weather your oponents attacks.

Go T2, buy upgrades, maybe dread, maybe liby. Go T3, buy Termis.

Mr_Ruin · February 2016

Librarian is always focus fired, but if you go assault marines and FC, you can use speed on FC (first liby upgrade) and jump with ASM, use the ASM sargeant's power, close with scouts to shotgun them, all in all a lot of distraction. And no one can target your Liby.

Or use Liby to kite, come close, shoot his psychic power, get behind your army. Enemy will charge trying to kill him, will charge right into your units. Or shield him with FC's shield.

Akabane101 · May 2016

Only those with true faith in the Emperor will see victory on the battlefield.

KeeperofSqueakers · May 2016

@Akabane101 said:
Only those with true faith in the Emperor will see victory on the battlefield.

Praying to a dead man on a golden toilet doesn't count as "faith" because you don't get rewarded for anything other than getting killed.

Worship the ruinous powers especially Slaanesh and you can have all the purple lolis you want and then some.

FaHu · May 2016

> @Bigamo said:
> In Retribution retail your best bet is to swap race... SM is in disavantage in pretty much every matchup. Problably have a fair fight against IG, but you will NEVER beat an ork as SM, simply can't be done...

It is possible to beat a ork. But it needs a lot of micro and knowledge

Akabane101 · May 2016

@KeeperofSqueakers said:

@Akabane101 said:
Only those with true faith in the Emperor will see victory on the battlefield.

Praying to a dead man on a golden toilet doesn't count as "faith" because you don't get rewarded for anything other than getting killed.

Worship the ruinous powers especially Slaanesh and you can have all the purple lolis you want and then some.

You've convinced me, I will join Slaanesh for the best lollipops a one could buy.

amarines · May 2016

@Bigamo said:
In Retribution retail your best bet is to swap race... SM is in disavantage in pretty much every matchup. Problably have a fair fight against IG, but you will NEVER beat an ork as SM, simply can't be done...

Bizzare that it tends to be the complete opposite on Table Top

amarines · May 2016

@Mods, not sure how to edit the above post... could you please merge?

@amarines said:

@Bigamo said:
In Retribution retail your best bet is to swap race... SM is in disavantage in pretty much every matchup. Problably have a fair fight against IG, but you will NEVER beat an ork as SM, simply can't be done...

Bizzare that it tends to be the complete opposite on Table Top

I thought I would add to this that there are some techniques you can use to counter orks (being an ork player):

Fully retreat your army as soon as you are rushed by orks for a battle you won't win, orks rule T1 and there's not much you can do about it. It's all about time and unless you need to delay using one squad, it's much faster to retreat with no casualties and coordinate a new attack then to battle for 30 seconds and lose 1 or 2 units per squad. If you get back to base with 1 casualty at most you can bounce back and start an assualt while the orks are mid capturing the resource points they just won over.
Double scouts with shotguns are a great counter for ork with two slugga squads that are offensively orientated. The shotgun burst will be the lifeline of both squads! Sergeant with nade and infiltration is good on one of these squads, you can easily kill a lone slugga squad with a sneak nade and double scout ambush.
Play for the late game, Orks are very overpowered in T1 so you need to play to get to T2 as fast as possible. This is difficult as you really need a ASM squad to disrupt ork shootas which almost always appear in pairs these days, it will vary by game how this goes. Once you get to a quick T2 you can easily dominate Orks with a Dread or Razorback supporting your units.
Due to the heavy reliance on T2, your power gens are the most important part of the game until you have upgraded your base. If the orks do a full gen bash then you have very little hope of ever getting back on top. Set up a turret, have your scouts infiltrated and ready to ambush or have your team mates (if not a 1v1) to be ready to come help out once the power is under threat.

Antiriad · May 2016

Warnikolai,
I understand your approach, and first I want to say that intensive micro management is usually key, for example for the Librarian.
However, to make things easier I would suggest you the following purchases:

-yes, do upgrade your tacs with missile launchers (don't do it before you actually spot an enemy vehicle!). The plasma gun upgrade is indeed inferior in many cases. Use their Kraken Bolt ability when you fire at heavy infantry. An old suggestion that Relic never implemented (well they don't even fix ancient bugs, so can't expect anything from these guys really) was that Tacs should be able to purchase multiple war gear options and then switch between them, the way commanders can do that.

-yes, get a dreadnought, but upgrade it with an assault cannon. This way it can lay havoc on enemy infantry while actually staying in the back (make sure you don't lose your scouts, so they can repair it if needed) and never send in vehicles/walkers (like the dreadnought) without infantry support!
Use the assault cannon's hellfire rounds ability, it's one of the most devastating attacks in the game when executed well.

-get force commander involve it more, if your infantry gets melted early on buy him the stormshield upgrade which has a great ability to reduce incoming damage. If you need more AV than your missile tacs provide, get him the power fist and get the teleporter upgrade to go with it, so you can teleport to a vehicle and disable it with the power fist special ability.

-if the micro management is overwhelming on you only get the veil of time upgrade on the librarian: this one does not just turn terminators into a frenzy but also nullify the usual setup time of devastator squads!

-if you say your assault termies "usually die" it means you really are just at the beginning of learning micro management. However, similar to the dreadnought I would for now just recommend that you in this case get the normal terminators instead and purchase their assault cannon upgrade! It will really make them rip through enemy infantry and they still retain their heavy-melee (that means anti-everyhting including vehicles) close combat attack if you need it. Use the "force melee" button to make them use it against an enemy vehicle that's close to them.

-note that assault marines are not really killers but rather disruptors, especially when they can also use their special strike, that way you can knockdown enemy infantry twice in a row (1st when you jump, 2nd when you use the strike ability, wait a bit in between to allow enemy infantry to almost get back up on their feet . they only shine when being supported by your main infantry force.

I hope these tips can help you somewhat with your particular play style.

NurlandDoW · June 2016

Would be super helpful to see a replay of you playing OP. Also, which SM hero are you playing? I am a bit rusty when it comes to standard Retribution since I usually play the Elite mod but I think the basics are still the same. I mostly play Force Commander so this is from FC aspect.

Plasma devastators should destroy blobbed up TCSM ez. Use Scouts with infiltration to scout their positions and just bomb away at them with Pdevs. You force him to abandon his defensive spot and then you can just demolish him with your vehicle or Lib and possible ASM + hero combination.

Anyway against TCSM spam you should be able to easily afford a lot of stuff. 3 TCSM 150-195 power, 45-60 pop and a crapton of requisition. The costs depend on whether or not he gets aspiring champions. I feel like a Dreadnought would probably be the best idea for your T2 purchase here. ASM are still great here. Single ASM can't solo 3 TCSM. TCSM are anti HI/SHI squad so they will demolish a lone ASM. So they need proper support. Also teleporter FC with the thunder hammer is crazy good for this. Also you probably want Artificer armor for FC. Gives him great hp regen and extra HP and energy.

Librarian is a decent choice here as well. Basically you just VoT (Lib speed buff ability) your ASM or FC, smite the TCSM, jump ASM, use merciless strike, teleport FC in while spriting the Lib into the fray.

Other option would be tanking and pushing with the dread and then teleporting and jumping the TCSM and possible AV with FC/ASM. Shotgun Scouts are great additional support for ASM as well. Just get the Sarge for them in T2 because they need that to survive in bigger brawls.

Razorback isn't bad either. Just need to be a bit careful with it against mass marked CSM. Remember to use the smoke ability against ranged blobs to get time to repair your transport. Reinforcing on the field + the added mobility is always great.

KanKrusha · June 2016

Hi

Fundamental rule of the game: to counter a vehicle you need two forms of AV - usually one hard and one soft. Rocket tacs count as soft so you need a lascannon Dev squad too as hard counter.

Plasma tacs do less damage to standard infantry than regular bolters so this is not an automatic upgrade. As rockets "trap" you away from bolters i would avoid them vs orks and IG.

Plasma Devs are good in theory but in practice their plasma balls always collide with terrain and miss the target

You should have 4 squads + hero in Tier one. "Double tacs" just means two of those are tac squads but you still have 4 squads. Likewise for "double scouts".

Overall, it sounds to me like you are over-extending. You are probably sending single squads too far forward aggressively and they are getting cut off without support and killed. I can tell this from how you talk about ASMs and your dreadnought. Those two squads need to be protected from losses and kept safe. Even single model losses of ASM will wreck your economy over time, let alone whole squad wipe.Try to reverse this and instead tempt your opponent to over extend heroes or single squads.

I suggest playing a couple of games with the sole aim of not losing a single squad. Forget about winning and capping, just for two games. Trust me, your allies wont notice and chances are you will play better and are more likely to win as a team.

If you want to get good play 1v1. Lots of 1v1. Then come back to team games.

HORDESLICER · July 2016

Force Commander is OP?? He can easly defeat the Avatar of Khaine but when he sees Orks warboss he turns into little ++heresy redacted++! He is sad excuse for a Force Commander...
He is stronger in normal armor than in the terminator armor and in the terminator armor he is stronger in melee with the ranged loadout than with the melee loadout!
What kind of Force Commander is that??

Jyrs · October 2016

When playing SM in 1v1, I'd go Tacs-->Scouts-->ASM, having double Scouts provides pretty good map control if thats what you need. By the way, if you're playing the basic retail version, just get the ELITE mod https://dawnofwar.info/ and remember that when you are facing vehicles, you dont really have to go rocket launcher, you can get the melta bomb for the ASM or equip a Devastator team with a lascannon

How not to suck with SM?

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