The RTSC Guide to Dawn of War
Part 9: Micro

DoW Basics

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Caution! Work in Progress page

This is the least developed page in the DoW Guide. Expect things to shuffle around, paragraphs to change (or disappear; or reproduce), pictures to be added, subtracted and generally messed around with and format to come and go. Mind the sawdust!)

Studying game replays can help, but you can only see so much from the outside. VOD's (Video replays of actual games, where you can see the player's screen and menus in action) are also pretty damn cool. Read some forums: (RelicNews and DoWSanctuary are generally the best ones) for reference. These fora are an awesome clearinghouse of game information, but just remember, they ain't gospel. If you are in it purely for the competition and nothing else, then going bananas on the Automatch ladder is the thing for you.

Probably one of the better ways to practise and learn your micro is to play Automatch - and be prepared to lose. A lot. You won't learn anything winning all the time. Don't just assume that just because you lost to something, its necessarily overpowering or broken.

AI players are no substitute for human ones, I'm afraid, especially in a game like this where manipulating your units by hand plays such a big part of the game. AI's are ultimately predictable once you've worked out their basic strategy, have no concept of a game plan, and absolute no character to make your win feel worthwhile. Skirmish Comp stomps usually deserve the derision they get (unless its a map designed with a particular co-op scenario in mind.

Quickstart bypasses most of the cool stuff in the game's strategy to offer you a relatively limited macro game. Actually, with the reduced starting resources and hard caps on Elite units in Dark Crusade, that may not be the case anymore. For all their talk of "skilled play" and insights I've seen "pro" drop in fury at the sign of "imba" (or their view of it, or their opinion of their team mates) and lose the side for their team (somehow its always someone else's fault), but I've also seen hopeless "noobs" in Quickstart demolish neverending lines "imba spam" using all the wrong units, all the wrong tactics and occasionally triumph - without ever suspecting there was something "wrong" in the first place. They were too busy having the time of their lives. People game for all kinds of reasons.

Micro is the means to an end, but not an end in itself, unless its a small 1v1 game. Being a "micro God" gives you some powerful advantages when it comes to pitting your units against your opponent, but its still no guarantee of a win. Like kung fu, you practice so it becomes an unconscious effort, otherwise you'll get wiped out wondering what the hell to do next, let alone try and keep up with the madness that's going on in-game.

Get in there and have fun. Know your basic keyboard shortcuts, get a rough idea how each unit feels and works, and then get into games with other players. Human ones. Ideally, you want to play with people at your own level. That's a hard thing to find on Gamespy unless you take the time and effort to build up a list gaming friends you can trust.

So micro. Here are the major game elements you're dealing with. Most squads have two ways of fighting. They can shoot at range, or engage in hand to hand close combat (or just cc). Some units are expressly designed to melee, others are exclusively hand to hand. Some are designed expressly to counter other kinds of units, others are a little more general purpose. Melee and ranged are also two stances that you can set your units to.

Ranged

Ranged combat is easy enough. Every RTS you've ever seen that uses guns, spears, arrows or venomous spittle is using ranged combat. Your squad parks itself somewhere and blasts away at anything hostile that strays into range. Most of the heavy weapons that you can equip a squad with come into play. When a squad is ordered to fire on another squad, it will only fire on that squad, regardless of how scattered its members might be. You can't selectively target individuals (unless a squad completes its orders and finds something to do), so surrounding your precious heavy weapons with extra regulars acting as a "meat shield" is a smart move a lot of the time. Enemy squads are less likely to pick off valuable weapons if there's a pool of regular infantry to get in the way.

Some Heavy Weapons use a "set up" system. That is, they need to be stationary for a few seconds to be "set up" before they can fire. Examples are Rocket Launchers, Sniper Rifles and Heavy Bolters. Even the slightest step will result in them ceasing fire and setting up again. Such heavy weapons are usually very powerful, but extremely susceptible to the slightest disruption.

When attacking at range, members of a squad tend to focus fire on a few unlucky individuals at a time in the target squad. This selection process seems to be quite random. As a general rule, the game engine favours ranged combat over close combat.

Close Combat or melee

When you switch to melee your squad will charge the target and fight with knives and swords. While ranged squads focus fire on individuals, troops in close combat usually fight one on one. This might seem a bit strange in a 41st Century full of lasers, heavy bolters and powered space armour, but in game terms it works. Melee is the counter to most heavy weapon or "shooty" squads. Any ranged unit engaged in close combat must sling its main weapon and defend itself by hand.

In tactical terms, close combat "turns off" ranged shooting. This makes tying-up enemy ranged squads an urgent priority. It doesn't matter whether just one member of a close combat troop gets only a single member a target squad into melee: the entire squad will stop shooting and fight out, hand to hand. In Dawn of War, Melee counters ranged. It especially upsets any weapons with set up times. But that's assuming your close combat troops can reach their target alive, of course.

Therein lies the rub with melee: in a game where all weapons can shoot through anything and bullets can pass harmlessly through allied troops, getting skirmishers close enough to melee can be a bit of an ask sometimes. Most of the time they're running around each other trying to hit their opponent. This gets even worse with the game's less than perfect path finding. Play your tactics wrong and you can lose an entire army in a few despairing seconds without even laying a finger on your opponent.

Conversely, you can sometimes disrupt many squads with just one close combat squad. Attack Moving into the enemy will see individual members of the squad disperse and engage the nearest individuals, sometimes disrupting many squads. But you're putting your units' lives in the AI's pathfinding hands - not always a reliable ally. A skilled opponent can stall a mass disruption like this by sending their own melee units in to counter.

But, close combat is essential. An all "shooty" force is wide open to disruption. Even if you use ranged units only, it's a rare game where you don't order your guys into close combat; either to stall the enemy, or to overpower them with mixed forces.

Disruption

Disruption is not a spell nor a button press. Its a vital concept to get your head around. One thing that makes DoW so interesting is that many units aren't that useful in killing units outright, but are still highly dangerous because they can disrupt enemy forces. At the very least, disruption is simply a technique to make it harder for your opponent to use their troops and counters on you effectively. That's it really. Just because a unit can't wipe out another doesn't mean you should never use it. Disruptiuon is a good way to neuter focus fire or make your opponent run more than they shoot.

Disruption usually implies...

...forcing ranged squads to dance or go into close combat;

...breaking the morale of the target squad with Snipers, Flamers or spells;

...dropping Jump Troops into the squad to force it into close combat;

...throw the members of the target squad all over the place with land mines, artillery or a powerful area effect spell.

Dancing

Dancing is a defensive tactic against close combat attacks. Its simply a form of controlled retreat. Generally, dancing is usually done with ranged troops running from close combat troops. You Move the squad that's being charged away from the fight, forcing the pursuing troops to chase after it while your other ranged squads are free to blast away at them on the sidelines. The attack doesn't get to do as much damage (although it has turned off the fleeing or "dancing" squad), and you preserve your guys with a stronger chance to turn the tables on the attacking close combat troops.

The rules concerning dancing changed a little in Dark Crusade. Most units, including vehicles, now only have 10% accuracy when moving. Pursing forces used to inflict huge casualties on fleeing squads in DoW and WA. Back then, some units, like Plasma Space Marines, could all but erase entire armies on the run. Now, a fleeing squad has an extremely good chance of escaping: its caused quite a few ripples in fora, as it changes how unit tactics work.

Jump Troops

Each army - except the Imperial Guard - has their own specialised aerial close combat units. Jump troops are close combat fighters that can leapfrog over entrenched (or fleeing) forces. Space Marine Assault Marines, Chaos Raptors, and Ork StormBoyz wear jump packs or rockets that lets them drop out of the sky onto any unsuspecting target. Eldar has short ranged Warp Spiders to surprise unsuspecting victims using teleporters to get a similar effect. For battles with mixed forces, melee units lead the charge, backed up by ranged units firing behind them in a line. From the sides, or from the very rear, Jump Troops fly over the battle to land behind the enemy shooters, disrupting them and neutralising their ranged support.

While jump troops have a mobility advantage, they are still vulnerable to heavy fire, and demand good timing and coordination with your other units in order to work effectively. Timing is everything. Like all units in Dawn of War, jump troops usually need backup in order to survive. They're generally lacking as a front line unit, and more useful as a harrasser or as a lone hit and run squad. They're high mobility allows them to scout the map and pick off any isolated units or Listening Posts before help can arrive. Jump troops are good for controlling the map and as a general counter against hard to reach ranged infantry.

Spells and Tricks

At first glance, a lot of a big area effect spells don't seem to do much. Grenades for the most part don't seem that nasty.

Again, it boils down to knowing your keyboard shortcuts, and being able to drop your guys in whilst ordering your other units to melee and attack at the same time. Often this is a rapid set of commands issued to multiple squads in the space of a few seconds. Know. Your. Shortcuts. Learn. Your. Guys. PRACTISE. You don't have to be brutal about it.

Unlike ranged squads who stand back and focus fire on one target at a time, a melee squad will break up and engage whoever happens to be standing nearest, effectively forcing more than one squad to defend at once, disabling several squads worth of heavy weapons at once. Tying up more than one squad in melee is known as "tapping" in Dawn of War circles.