Stainless said:
the chaos/space marine 25% firepower, etc. Although the stats point to chaos having equal damage, they have lower accuracy, along with lower morale thresholds. It's simply a matter that Space Marines are of a higher standard then your CSM. One on one, the SM will win over a CSM.
That's the problem, you never get them one on one. Two on one maybe or three on two but never one on one. Even with their inaccuracy, they have a tendency to simply cut-down anything they out-man relatively quickly.
Stainless said:
Space Marine squads also offer alot more versitility with their squads in their heavy weapons, CSMs on the other hand have the infiltration advantage. These two opposing units aren't carbon copies.
Where as a SM squad can be modified to anti-tank, CSM's cannot, having to rely on Horrors and other anti-vehicle units.
CSM's can't? Last I checked, I've been using Chaos Space Marine rocket launcher's. CSM's have all the heavy weaponry that SM's do AND they have infiltration as well AND they out-number you by enough that their inaccuracy isn't much of an issue. Sure they don't have Rally for a Morale boost but with Berserker that also tends to not be an issue.
Mind you the game chugs like a bitch for me whenever anyone attacks given the whole 3d engine and all your units vs all his units thing going on. Enough that clicking on and rallying an SM squad is more of annoyance rather than being a nice quick movement. If your squad's lost that much morale though, chances are they're about to be cut down anyway.
Stainless said:
To this extent you can also debate the "more units, wins" statement (I'm being pretty basic with the quotes here DU
), akin to SC, each unit has it's own armour type, and often microning squads well enough so that heavy firepower ranged units are tied up with your close combat units is a good way to help tip the scales.
I do realise there are occasions when "more units, wins" is false such as a group of plain CSM's attacking a group of upgraded SM's but if he's upgraded, then you have too. If he's got Plasma Guns, so do you. If he's got Rocket Launchers, so do you.
There are also still units that seem to be far more effective than others as well simply because of sheer numbers. I played a Skirmish game against Ork testing out the effectiveness of Terminators. I dropped 4 squads (32 men, the most I could build) into the Ork base and watched as they lost morale and were cut-down. I then got 8 squads of SM's (72 men including Seargents which again, was the most I could get) and tried the same thing and watched as one group of SM's lost morale but the rest kept firing and because I had almost twice the number of men that I was attacking with compared to before with Terminators, my guys won. So while Terminators might be the better unit, the fact that I can build more of the other units means you're going to lose if you waste resources to get them.
Stainless said:
Finally, people aren't reduced to "I'll just spam CSM's and see how that goes" strat. With chaos alone there tends to be at least 3 strats you can run with at the very start, ranging from getting your cultists nade launcher happy with infiltration, to the more common zerker rush with it's bastard raptor harressment.
I can remember a game I played online where I went all out for CSM's while he got those red demon things. At first I thought "oh shit, he's got those more expensive demon things which I didn't bother getting. They're going to tear me apart" but then I watched as my guys cut them down before they even got close enough to attack. I love close-combat units. They're so wonderfully useless.
I'll admit that there are strategies (like attack with ground units now or attack with gorund units later) and that the player who knows how to Smite and Rally and Frag Grenade at the right time does have the advantage but still, if I out-number you while you're trying to micro-manage your squads, you're going to get cut-down. Again, it only helps tip the balance in an even competition. Given I'm going to be attacking you with everything I've got along with everything my ally has got as well, then unless you have more units from an ally to help you out and soon (in fact, instantaneously), you're not going to last no matter what you try and do.
kingcomrade said:
DU post your SC replays somewhere. That sounds like a good show.
I think they're all from before the patch update which messed up the old replays. Actually, I don't even think I have them on this computer either... Uherm.. In which case they would've been wiped in the upgrade anyway. I used to save most games I played when I started too but eventually stopped becase I figured I was never going to do anything with them.
