Dealing with 3 sent, LG and repair bunker in T1

[PhatE]

Hi,

Has anyone else been seeing this? It's an extremely effective cheese that seems near impossible to stop.

While the Sentinel does little damage, they don't bleed. Opening with 3 of them seems a little too powerful, if the IG positions themselves well they can avert any losses they might incur from buying GM.

This wouldn't be bad except when there is a LG around and he decides to drop a repair bunker. Having him around makes it impossible to take the bunker he can just quickly get out reinforce himself and any attempt you make to take the bunker there's a nice juicy stomp waiting for you at the entrance considering there's only 1 side you can get inside them. Whilst all this is happening the GM that come for free are busy capping the map. It also removes any reason to buy any more GM for the rest of the game unless they just want to add insult to injury by maxing out the repair potential.

Whilst this is a slow process it's pretty much an assured victory since all your established economy is decapped and eventually you start to lose the ability to reinforce models and you don't have a reasonable chance of at least coming back in some shape or form, your nat req and power are gone. Stuck in t1 and they have quite a substantial lead.

My question is why is the repair bunker even around in t1? It's not like this thing can be destroyed in T1. I get that sentinels need some form of repairing but that's what GM are for. Not only is it available that early but it repairs all vehicles equally at the same time. If you manage to claim the bunker, from what I remember LG can get his grenade launcher in T1 as well? You are pretty much dead if that's the case.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's seen this, it works especially well on ashes of typhon.

[Asmon]

I seriously doubt this is viable. There are many counters to 3x sents: suppression teams, snipers, or just a nids blob of doom.

Seriously any race but nids and GK can build 2xhwt and it will force the sents off the bunker. SM and Eldar can get snipers that heavily damage sents and kill garrisoned units. Chaos can get GL tics and NM. IG can get one ASS to shut down sents and one catachans to wipe the bunker. GK can burn the hell out of it and with a Nemesis sword BC you can simply run to the bunker with your whole army.

Only nids have it a bit more difficult for they need a good ranged blob plus BSW or multiple spore mines. But it's still very do-able. And you got your horma to prevent the lone GM squad from capping.

I remember you're an Ork player so perhaps you're too used to retail and up lootas. Try 2 of them vs the sents and you're good to go. Plus any hero will have something to complement nicely with it: WB can get +25% hp for everyone, MB can teleport in front of the sents and do like half an hp bar in one hit with his suppression gun. Or just stand behind and shoot&heal. KN can wipe the bunker on his own.

And use shields! 100% ranged damage resistance! Get your lootas behind shields and lol at your opponent. Com'on! =)

[Ace of Swords]

3 Sents is really annoying to deal with for sure, but yeah beside the fact that the repair bunker should be t2 it should either repair 1 unit at time or lower at a way lower rate since it's healing ALL of the vehicles around it in a quite decent sized area.

[Lulgrim]

From the technical perspective, it would be possible to have a fixed hp/s repair rate distributed evenly among all affected vehicles. From the balance perspective,

¯\(°_o)/¯

[Kvek]

And use shields! 100% ranged damage resistance! Get your lootas behind shields and lol at your opponent. Com'on! =)

And burn shields?? hehe

[Caeltos]

I'm no stranger ot the 3 sent strategy, but it has it's flaws. It has a relatively poor transition performance. And losing individual sentinel has a major impact on the overall strategy that it thrives on. I don't think it's unbalanced by any means, it's really just annoying if executed well.

But yeah, for now ....

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

Deal with it.

I don't mean that in a rude fashion, I just thought i'd be funny. If it really is an issue amongst in a concensus, then I'll look into it.

[Torpid]

Well it's certainly not a build that is easy to pull off, so that's a start. I mean eldar are a good race when played by a player which impeccable micro, possibly OP when compared to someone playing chaos with impeccable micro, but that's kind of the point of the race. Well here this is a true cheese build - it's hard to pull off and tries to end the game in t1, if you lose a sent or cannot crush their gens you're screwed.

I generally get a bunker in t2 anyway because I want to get to t2 asap to prevent vehicle rushes whenever I do this strategy, really some intelligent gameplay with multiple suppression teams or even just strong ranged squads at flanks can allow you to pick off the sents, the key to beating it is also constantly forcing off that GM squad, without that the build is far less effective. I have been on the receiving end of this strategy as a nid player though and I must say constantly bleeding while not hurting your opponents eco at all is a very frustrating thing to be dealing with... but then I just get a venom brood out and ranged synapse and the sents die instantly so...

I don't think this is an OP build, it's just a massive cheese build. It's fun to do every now and then to prove your micro to someone. (Remember that sents with repair support are efficient suppression counters since they do full damage to them due to not being able to be suppressed) anyway I'm rambling so I'll shut up now.

[crazyman64335]

Counter

Capture the Bunker? They obviously only have their commander is this is their opening, so capping the bunker is the obvious choice imo

[PhatE]

It was more that the particular case I'm referring to is extremely early pressure. And on ashes of typhon.

Counter

Capture the Bunker? They obviously only have their commander is this is their opening, so capping the bunker is the obvious choice imo

The LG is the key part of the strategy, he can get out and just reinforce himself and the attempt to take it is thwarted since as mentioned there is only 1 entrance to the building (at least that's my understanding), even if you manage to get the LG out there's a sentinel waiting to stomp, repeat reinforcement on LG and get back inside. If shootas are inside the bunker 2 of the models tend to be only ones shooting since sentinels can back away for a short while and their range is greater than shootas. So yes while the potential to take it is there it takes a long time and a lot of models to really take and hold that position.

I seriously doubt this is viable. There are many counters to 3x sents: suppression teams, snipers, or just a nids blob of doom.

Seriously any race but nids and GK can build 2xhwt and it will force the sents off the bunker. SM and Eldar can get snipers that heavily damage sents and kill garrisoned units. Chaos can get GL tics and NM. IG can get one ASS to shut down sents and one catachans to wipe the bunker. GK can burn the hell out of it and with a Nemesis sword BC you can simply run to the bunker with your whole army.

Only nids have it a bit more difficult for they need a good ranged blob plus BSW or multiple spore mines. But it's still very do-able. And you got your horma to prevent the lone GM squad from capping.

I remember you're an Ork player so perhaps you're too used to retail and up lootas. Try 2 of them vs the sents and you're good to go. Plus any hero will have something to complement nicely with it: WB can get +25% hp for everyone, MB can teleport in front of the sents and do like half an hp bar in one hit with his suppression gun. Or just stand behind and shoot&heal. KN can wipe the bunker on his own.

And use shields! 100% ranged damage resistance! Get your lootas behind shields and lol at your opponent. Com'on! =)

It's not a viable strategy if the IG player doesn't have GM, but for that first little while there's a free one to help out for a little while. It's just a matter of being able to stop 3 sentinels with the LG from killing you before the bunker gets deployed.

You're correct Asmon I do play that race quite a lot . But the thing is it's quite tough to get lootas out when shootas require upgrades to fight. It's quite hard to see this strategy coming unless you run ahead early, see it and then put down 3 gens so you can get the required upgrades in time before the bunker. It's also difficult to interpret whether not seeing their NAT VP get capped is an indication of standard early harassment or they are doing this build.

Lux also had this issue in a 2 vs 2 we were playing, he got 3 DA and 2 Shurikens and still couldn't kill the sentinels even after I had told him this build is going to happen against him. The sentinels lasted until T3 and near the end of the game but that was the fact that sentinel management was done pretty well but regardless the mass ranged army of Eldar was having trouble dealing with this and that eldar opening is really strong as well.

I'm accustomed to both retail and the current state of ELITE, that being lootas are on the off chance awesome and most times not so awesome --> lootas being just awesome. However they tend to die to the combined focus fire trying to get in position. It's very risky to try and get close to get the raw damage they can output. This is in particular with having to have your entire army there to stop the stomp, burn LG which unfortunately "burn the house down" still under performs in some regards. I dunno the ability can seem underwhelming at times BUT its suppression immunity does stick around for a while so that's a plus but a bit off topic.

The biggest issue is when the repair comes up, while lootas and shootas are doing damage they're still bleeding whilst you see the green health bars of the sentinels stay at 3/4 which forces you to retreat. Orks won't be the only ones subject to this. the bunker also gives that little bit of vision so sentinels can shoot first.

If you have the bunker and they've hit t2 followed by the missile upgrade on the sentinel there's no way you can hold it. But after some thought I'd just need to get in and get out and the repair stops. I just have to be careful that the LG is lurking around somewhere so he can retake it.

But I agree Mek and Kommando have a much easier time fighting this. It's just the warboss that gets owned the hardest, he can't just be sitting around with boss pole just encouraging his orks with a polite set of grunts or roars offering more HP. If he goes off for capping duty he is found relatively quickly and by then it's just a stalling tactic. As good as the new custom shoota is I feel its much more worth while investing that power into units.

The counters that seem to work for the most part is massing shootas but that seems to fall flat when there's decaps happening at all times despite the strength of Ork economy. 4-5 squads is very burdensome.

Lol this is sounding very defeatist of me and looks to be very long. But I want to stress that I don't want to suggest a nerf the sentinel or anything like that and it's a really cool build, not easy to do, very micro intensive to be able to manage all 3 simultaneously. But having the repair rate to be that of GM on all vehicles when you haven't bought them seems a little too strong. I'm aware there are counters, such as mass shootas for instance (3-4), rangers, 2 suppression teams, etc. The IG needs to sacrifice power income to get these out quickly. This was a concern for me on large maps where most units aren't scouts and where your power isn't really all that close the sentinels have ample time to do whatever they want. At least this always happens to me on large maps, It just feels like free reign when the repair bunker starts. Plus I don't really feel like even capturing gains me anything after the sentinels are gone, it takes ages to destroy as well, I can't even destroy it after I take the bunker. The architect behind these things truly knows his stuff.

I'm no stranger ot the 3 sent strategy, but it has it's flaws. It has a relatively poor transition performance. And losing individual sentinel has a major impact on the overall strategy that it thrives on. I don't think it's unbalanced by any means, it's really just annoying if executed well.

But yeah, for now ....

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

Deal with it.

I don't mean that in a rude fashion, I just thought i'd be funny. If it really is an issue amongst in a concensus, then I'll look into it.

YYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

I really hope we are talking about the same thing


I'll no doubt edit this a few times to fix my spelling mistakes

[Rataxas]

I seriously doubt this is viable. There are many counters to 3x sents: suppression teams, snipers, or just a nids blob of doom.

Seriously any race but nids and GK can build 2xhwt and it will force the sents off the bunker. SM and Eldar can get snipers that heavily damage sents and kill garrisoned units. Chaos can get GL tics and NM. IG can get one ASS to shut down sents and one catachans to wipe the bunker. GK can burn the hell out of it and with a Nemesis sword BC you can simply run to the bunker with your whole army.

Only nids have it a bit more difficult for they need a good ranged blob plus BSW or multiple spore mines. But it's still very do-able. And you got your horma to prevent the lone GM squad from capping.

agree with 90% clever things you say brother

[Asmon]

Also, perhaps you can crush the bunker while in construction with WB and Angry Bitz. Needs a checkin'.

[FiSH]

Also, perhaps you can crush the bunker while in construction with WB and Angry Bitz. Needs a checkin'.

pretty sure the bunker does get cancelled, but the resources are returned.

[Lag]

I am an IG player and IMHO the Repair upgrade for the Bunker shouldn't be in T1.

[Dark Riku]

Some tips:
Don't feed your units to the sents.
Pressure from a position of power, otherwise back off.
As long as you don't feed the IG player 75 red he can't call down a bunker.

[crazyman64335]

another thing you could easily do, i simply avoid the bunker all together. Regardless of game mode you can easily push other areas of the map and draw the sents away from the bunker. 1v1 is super easy to do this in. 2v2 is a little more difficult (depends on where he put the bunker) but is still defiantly possible. and 3v3 you can easily pressure other lanes (even if you do have to give a single cap, in which case you'll probably tech faster and be able to get counters more efficiently.

[EBA]

I feel bad for the guys driving the sentinals .I mean, they just know at some point in the battle they'll end up dead, but they just keep trucking on in their little walkers. They don't even get to run away like the guys of the ground.

[Codex]

EBA, please add some value to these balance discussions. I mean, you've written 6 posts in 6 different balance threads and not shared one balance opinion with evidence, just trolling and making jokes. This thread for example has been inactive for a week, and you reply with a joke.

General Discussions is different, that said.

[Batpimp]

thank you codex for mentioning that.