Question re: balance in the campaign

[Solo4114]

So, I'm about 5 missions in to Act 2 (I think), and am attacking Tartarus (the mission with Tu'Shan and Dante as playable units). I've noticed a few things.

1. Emplaced defenders basically seem to exist purely as cannon fodder, and are meant to be steamrolled. Maybe they do some token damage to the AI before they fall, but they're supposed to fall, rather than hold until relieved. Alternatively, they're meant to "spoof" the AI and draw their focus for an extra few rounds so that you can get your troops into position to counter-attack.

2. The enemy gets a CRAPLOAD of units to use in all scenarios. Now, granted, my troops can usually defeat the enemy troops (on Normal difficulty), but I do tend to notice just how many more units the orks get. If I have 15 units, the orks have, like, 40. Many of them are squishy cannon fodder, but en masse, they can slow me down or even defeat me if I'm not careful.

3. The campaign, by Act 2, basically requires you to get rid of certain infantry units you may have used through Act 1. When I started Act 2, I ditched: my AT support (which had a solid amount of XP), my heavy bolter supports (two of 'em), and eventually even my Ogryn. I replaced them all with Blood Angels infantry. By Act 2, my core force is something like:

3x Shadowsword (weapon upgraded)
1x Banesword (upgraded)
1x Basilisk Armageddon Pattern
2x Baneblade (weapon upgraded)
1x Stormlord (upgraded)
2x Warhound Titans
1x Blood Angels command squad
2x Blood Angels Death Company
2x Blood Angels Death Company Assault
2x Blood Angels Scouts
1x Captain Tycho & Friends
2x Blood Angels Heavy Bolter support
2x Blood Angels Terminators with Cyclone Missiles

Now, this strikes me as a fine, well-balanced fighting force. I've got some recon, a nice mix of infantry, plenty of anti-armor, some anti-infantry, a bit of artillery, and some all-rounder armor. For the most part, if I play smart, I find myself able to win most of the scenarios I've encountered thus far. I have to be careful about splitting my forces, and pray the Emperor will protect me from the RNGods, but I'm basically fine with this loadout.

What I've noticed, though, is that given the limit on my total number of core units, I basically have to go with this setup. In the final mission of Act 1 (which was awesome, by the way), I lost several core units and had to reinforce others to the point where they lost the bulk of their XP. Given that the types of units you face in that mission become the default for Act 2 (with a few Gargants/Stompas thrown in for funsies), this would mean that -- if I wanted to stick with my old core (made up of Ogryns as the bulk of my infantry, with a scout walker, command squad, 2x bolter support, 1x AT, destroyers, Leman Russ vanquishers, Leman Russ punisher, and Basilisk Armageddon patterns for artillery), I'd end up either losing most scenarios. I'd spend too much time reinforcing my beaten units, or replacing them when they inevitably get shredded, and would eventually run out of reinforcement points and/or turns.

Basically, this takes the game from an IG focused game to an SM focused game. The Steel Legion in my game is now only represented by superheavy tanks and artillery. All infantry is gone, replaced with Space Marines. There isn't an option to overwhelm the enemy with numbers by fielding TONS of IG infantry units for the same point cost, and it seems like giving up turns to constantly reinforce (so as to avoid total destruction) isn't really a viable strategy.

I suppose I could edit the game to remove core limits, but I guess I'd also have to increase the number of spaces for map placement. Alternatively, maybe make each IG unit have more troops in it (and correspondingly increase point cost), to allow you to field more "units" without clogging up the map? I dunno. It just seems like you're kind of funneled into using SM infantry around Act 2, which is fine, but kind of makes me wonder why bother even offering IG units to purchase at that point? Is this all by design? Was the goal here to take players through an experience where they use a wide variety of unit types? Or am I missing some approach to gameplay that would make sticking with mostly the IG for my core a viable experience?

Mind you, I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering if there's really a way to stay "pure IG" and still actually manage to win.

[ComissarKrouss]

The entire campaign is meant to be a Space Marine focused campaign after their insertion, and follows the 40k lore amazingly close. The battle really was a lost cause until the Space Marines dropped in to help the local troops fight off the hordes, and to fight effectively you need to mix and match what you get from all Space Marine chapters and Imperial Guard.
You have a pretty balanced composition using the superior armor and titans available to the Imperial Guard mixed with the superior infantry provided by the Blood Angels.
The only thing I feel could be balanced a bit better are the differences between space marine chapters. I found myself using exclusively Blood Angel troops as Ultramarines were cheaper but requisition was hardly a problem and the Salamanders are pretty meh.
If you are looking for an infantry focused campaign, try the new Ork Hunters expansion pack as it's entirely focused on the IG. It's really good and you'll be using mostly infantry to fight in the dense jungles and urban settings the campaign takes place in, and besides, their armor pales in comparison to their amazing infantry units.

[Solo4114]

The entire campaign is meant to be a Space Marine focused campaign after their insertion, and follows the 40k lore amazingly close. The battle really was a lost cause until the Space Marines dropped in to help the local troops fight off the hordes, and to fight effectively you need to mix and match what you get from all Space Marine chapters and Imperial Guard.
You have a pretty balanced composition using the superior armor and titans available to the Imperial Guard mixed with the superior infantry provided by the Blood Angels.
The only thing I feel could be balanced a bit better are the differences between space marine chapters. I found myself using exclusively Blood Angel troops as Ultramarines were cheaper but requisition was hardly a problem and the Salamanders are pretty meh.
If you are looking for an infantry focused campaign, try the new Ork Hunters expansion pack as it's entirely focused on the IG. It's really good and you'll be using mostly infantry to fight in the dense jungles and urban settings the campaign takes place in, and besides, their armor pales in comparison to their amazing infantry units.

Thanks! I ended up adding a few Salamanders units -- two Land Raiders and two Assault Bike squads. I found that in a mission or two, I needed more rapid response units because the superheavy armor is so slow. But I wanted someone a bit more durable than my Blood Angels had proven to be. They're great shots, but they can't take the heat as well.

Anyway, I ended up finishing the main campaign and am now like 2-3 missions into Vulkan's Wrath. Interesting stuff so far, although a few of the missions are a bit...confusing in terms of how they lay out your objectives. "Take all victory hexes" makes sense, but I'm on the one where you kill a vehicle convoy, and I can't tell if I'm supposed to lie in wait for the enemy, or advance and assault. I'll figure it out, but it might be clearer if the objective screen told you a bit more or gave you a recap of your orders with highlighted objectives.

[cj95]

Solo,


You have pretty much echoed the biggest issue I had with this game in that my beloved Steel Legion forces where quickly made obsolete as the difficulty pretty much demands a Space Marine force.

Nothing against SM's mind you but I really really enjoyed messing around with the squishy IG units and had to come to the decision about how I wanted to continue the game and what kind of fun I would garner from it.

Finally in the interest of "fun" I went ahead and "cheated" by editing the scenarios to provide a larger number of allowable units.

Still interested in a challenge I filled out the extra slot with pure IG units who are still pretty useless, but at least from a 'fluff' perspective I get the enjoyment of moving them around on the map while my SM's do all the real work.

Cheating? Well yes, but realistically otherwise I would never have bothered to finish the game with pure SM forces.
In the end I made the decision to have fun.

Your mileage may vary.


My current army: (still pretty weak)

9x Steel Legion platoons (aka cannon fodder)
3x Heavy Bolter squads
1x Squat Snipers
5x Lehman Russ of various flavors
3x Baneblades of various flavors
3 x Basilisk

1x Captain Tycho
3x Blood Angels Tac Squads
1x Blood Angels Heavy Bolters
1x Scout Snipers

1x Land Raider
2x Vidicators

What do you think?

[Solo4114]

Interesting! Looks liek it'd be fun to play with, although I question just how viable the Steel Legion (SL) infantry would be in the later game where multiple Ork superheavies and Mega Armored Nobz can kill decimate Steel Legion infantry.

I started thinking about how balance would need to work with Steel Legion (SL) units in order to make them truly viable later in the campaign, while still maintaining a gradual ramp-up in difficulty.

There are a few constraining factors.

The biggest issue, I think, is the size of the map. While some maps are truly huge, most aren't. For a force of around 20-25 units, you have enough room to maneuver without creating awful bottlenecks everywhere. So, SM-based armies can work fine. They're small enough (in terms of the raw number of units taking up tiles) to remain mobile, while powerful enough to stand up to the tougher Orks you come up against later in the campaign.

But to do the same with SL units, you really need to do what you did -- increase the pop caps for a map. The problem, however, becomes maneuverability and bottlenecks. If the map is too small, you won't be able to get close enough to the enemy to really unleash the power of all your units effectively. Or you'll have units stranded on one side of a bridge who can't stand up to the enemies on the other side, but can't get support from friendlies who are stuck behind a wall of friendlies elsewhere.


I think the solution would be adding a few new types of units later in the campaign that would retain the individual capabilities of your average SL trooper, but sufficiently increase the number of troops within the unit to remain about as durable (as a single unit) as Space Marines. So, instead of your standard 25-man unit, you'd have, like, 100-man units (or whatever). This would also allow the units to gain experience in spite of needing constant reinforcement, since the total percentage of XP loss would be (hopefully) mitigated by the sheer size of the unit itself. My problem is I have no idea what that balance point would be. 100-man units? 80-man units? 150-man units? No clue.