Understanding IG vs SM match up

[Impregnable]

Hi guys. This is actually a question not from me but my Korean friend who cannot speak english. He used to play DOW2 Retribution fervently as IG main before THQ went bankrupt and stopped playing ever since the start of 2013. He was a very focused on 1 v 1 and used to achieve high places in tournaments in Korea back in the days but he was discouraged to play when the patches eventually stopped. He recently asked me about how is DOW2 scene nowadays and I told him about how Elite Mod is keeping the game alive with an active global community. He was quite excited to hear about regular MRTs, ESL system and how youtube castors like Indrid and bBbOS has been posting games in such huge quantity over time. However, he is afraid that he won't be able to catch up with the current trend without being able to speak english because he will not be able to ask for L2P issues in the forums. So he ask me to ask questions in his stead and I agreed that I would ask questions for him and translate answers back in Korean. After watching 1 v 1 replays crazily this past month, he told me he realized that he is not so sure about IG vs SM and IG vs Eldar match ups anymore. He says that he would be able to catch up with other match ups eventually but not those 2 if he starts to play Elite now.

Below is the Korean guide he wrote regarding SM vs IG when he used to play fervently back in 2012. I translated it in English and he wants to know how much has changed from this meta compared to now. Any help would be appreciated. Since it can be too long if I post both of the guides here, I will write in a separate post for IG vs Eldar match up.

IG vs SM
Space Marines is a faction that gets stronger as they reach T3. The most important things in IG vs SM match up are firstly not to fall behind in tech race and secondly not to let Catachans get poked first or focus fired. In addition, do not forget that you can make this match up go way easier if you keep vehicle units like sentinel and chimera alive for a long period of time although it can be hard to do so against Space Marines' great AV potential.

Tier 1
During early skirmish period, Scouts are what gives SM most of its mobility, providing vision and capping. Thus, if sentinels constantly stalk and harass scouts around the map, scouts cannot do anything about it and remaining tacs have no efficient role to play against IG at that point either. Looking at this point alone can give the impression that IG has an upper hand in this match up but considering how powerful ASM are vs IG and how IG cannot properly counter devs due to lack of jump units, it is safe to say both factions are equally matched. Since there is no way for SM to cost efficiently win in a plain shooting match vs 2 Plasma Gun GM + 1 Cata, SM will try to fight with specialized troops such as ASM and Devs. On the other hand, this means IG has to take counter measures against such specialized troops to reduce their efficiency while pushing the line and holding it. After that IG must try its best to hit gens as much as possible.

Most popular SM builds nowadays against IG are 1scout/1tac/1dev/1ASM and 2scout/1tac/2dev. If the opponent uses FC or Apo, you are most likely to see ASM based builds. FC can charge along following ASM jump to support it and Apo can keep ASM alive longer through heals and full auto. Engagements initiated by ASM can be more difficult to win than what most IG players may think. Tier 2 on wards, sentinels are hard to keep alive and upgraded ASM in T2 can put Catas in danger in melee combat so if there is some support fire flying in, Catas are going down fast. This is a very well thought tactic that exploits IG weakness in T2 that all of IG's anti melee potential is focused on Cata alone in trade for getting stronger ranged fire power for other units. However, this also can be countered by using IG heroes' support potential and by keeping Chimera alive. Melee heavy SM will suffer greatly if you do those two things. Inq is infamous for locking enemy heroes and melee troops down for ages. LC buffing Cata with Power Sword buff and inspire courage can erase ASM in a blink of an eye. Even LG with his Flak Jaecket and med kit support can handle ASM as long as he has a Chimera. Therefore, the key in countering ASM based builds is keeping Chimera alive no matter the cost.

In comparison, 2scout/1tac/2dev build is the one that skips ASM so they can make full use of set up teams. This build will most likely add a Plasma Dev the moment it reach T2 so Manticores are a must to have and must bash gen farms quickly to delay teching because Pdevs do not cost any power. Also you can exploit enemy weakness of having 3 set up teams in total which come at cost of greatly reduced mobility by focusing on guerrilla warfare.

To sum it up, IG must deal a great damage to SM in T1 in anyway possible. Especially important thing is bashing gens. At the least, IG must bash same number of gens the opponent did. This is because even if IG had overwhelming advantage in T1, if SM suffered only loss in VP and unit reinforcement cost, the SM strength in T2 will more than sufficiently make up for that and this will eventually cost IG the game. The best case scenario is to bash gens the moment SM just barely got a ASM out from HQ so that you can block SM player from teching up. Thus, Sentinel plays a very important role during this period, because it has to stop ASM by using stomps properly. This is very important. You should never ever lose sentinels in vs SM match up. As long as you keep it away from getting hit by ranged fire for an extended period of time, you will be able to preserve it until T3 and it will be of great use to you so keep it alive. Also similar to how it is in IG vs Eldar match up, do not charge head long against set up teams. If SM has set up a shop with various set up teams, there is no way you are going to break into it with frontal assault no matter what you do so exploit their weakness in mobility. Divide up your army into separate teams such as GMs + Sent or GMs + Cata and start doing guerrilla warfare and make sure your sentinels are constantly harassing enemy scouts and commanders. These measures will make this match up go more smoothly.

SM may go for a alternative build which is 1scout + 1 or 2 tac with Flamer + 1 dev or 1 ASM. This is a build that exploits IG weakness in T1 that all of its units are infantry armor and are extremely weak vs flamers. This build blocks you from using buildings and also destroys gens in a speed of lightning. Even a plain vanilla tac with no upgrades turn into absolute killing machines vs GM if it has a Flamer. This build is similar to how Chaos use Noise Marines against your GM and can be quite tricky to counter. The answer is to invest heavily into your commander wargears and push those tacs off. If the opponent use this build and you don't see a tac around during engagements or in your vision, there is about 90% chance that it is on the way to bash gens so counter it properly.

Tier 2
Come tier 2, SM do not want to fight for an extended period of time in this tier since longer SM and IG fights in T2, IG benefits more. Thus, SM tries to get about 1 or 2 units only and quickly tech to Tier 3 which is in SM's favor. At this point, if the enemy commander is FC and has ASM running around, you will most likely see a Libby coming out. In this case, you would like to invest in your own commander wargear that can counter FC. Also, if you see SM bringing out a Dreadnaught in T2, that means your opponent is going all in and intends to win this game in T2. When it comes down to this, never ever try to counter melee Dread with Ogryn. Melee Dread will tear even fully upgraded Ogryn to shreds with little or no effort. Unfortunately for IG players, only walkers that Ogryn cannot win in 1 v 1 in T2 are melee dread and Khorne Dread. They can win against every other walker in T2 but not these 2 so you need a las cannon HWT. If the opponent put a ranged weapon on Dread, Ogryns will win that fight but this is not in IG's favor since Ogryns cannot do their main job which is disrupting enemy lines while trying to take down that Dread. Melta ST cannot do massive damage in a short period of time and has very short range so you need las cannon anyways. Especially, although quite expensive, assault cannon on Dread is a crazily effective weapon against IG infantry. It has quite a long range and that makes it difficult to approach it and there are usually devs or pdevs covering it which makes matters worse.

However, there is a sneaky way to make a SM player have a headache. This is sort of a trick that will make a SM player to think twice before getting an ranged upgrade on dread. Assault cannon barrage is such a tempting ability to use when a player see a tasty bunched up group of GM lining up in front of Dread. If it goes off, GM will die in droves and will be either forced to retreat or get in to Chimera. However, Dread stops for barrage and barrage casting time is very long and most importantly, you cannot stop it once it activates. So this is what IG player can do with a manti. You will bait that barrage with GM and the moment you see the motion starting, put down manti shots on dread to snipe it off clean in one go. If all 4 missiles hit, it will die instantly. Increase the success rate with las HWT, sent av missile or ST melta bomb or av wargear. This will put some micro pressure on your opponent making him think using Assault Barrage is not as rewarding.

Bascially, what IG has to do in T2 is to use Chimera and Manticore with utmost efficiency. These two units are only answer IG can bring to fight against that brutal synergy SM has in T2. Other T2 units IG has which are Ogryn and ST are not that efficient vs SM. What is needed vs SM is a capability to break through enemy defensive line and to fight for an extended period of time to slowly push the enemy away not an instant amount of dps you can bring on the field. Melta ST have very low survival rate in vs SM matches due to SM units' firepower and its range is way too short to be effective in this match up. Only time it is needed is vs Razorback. Since Razorback is so fast, it can be hard to tackle it with las cannon HWT alone. In case of Assault kit ST, you need to remember this isn't about who can put out most dps in the shortest amount of time like how it is in IG vs Ork match up. AK ST are not that good at taking out devs and pdevs so has one of the lowest priority in this match up. If you need a capper, go for an extra squad of GM not ST. This way more cost efficient. Also, Ogryn is a unit you should never ever even think about producing in vs SM match up. It is because walkers in this game are the most cost inefficient units except blood crushers and Ogryns are the worst out of them. It is infantry and can be fast but that is all that it has. It cannot break suppression on their own. Its melee dps isn't that great even if you do manage to get it in and has quite low health for its role. Even worse, it gets completely owned by power weapons. For these reasons, IG has no choice but to use Chimera and Manticore expertly in order to stand a chance in T2.

However, this doesn't mean IG cannot win against SM in T2. If SM brought out Libby, Dreadnaught, dev, Pdev at the same time in T2, it is safe to say your opponent has invested a huge amount of resources in T2 and cannot hope to do anything else. It is not only IG that cannot break through that sort of defensive line. No other faction cannot break through SM defensive line consisting of those units so there is no reason to be disappointed. As said before, keep chimera alive vs Libby based SM builds. Longer you keep your Chimera alive, more desperate Melee focused SM will get. Also, Mantis can be used to counter pdevs completely. If you have to disrupt both dev and pdev and feels not so sure you can manage both, it is better to force off dev first. pdev not supported by suppression is not that effective vs infantry and is quite easy to force off when left alone unguarded. In addition, you must observe carefully at this point what SM is trying to do. If it is just guarding gens and not pushing, it means your opponent is trying to tech fast into T3 using 2 fully upgraded gen farms. Once you realized your opponent is doing this, you must push quickly and hard because if you fail to do so you will get completely owned after seeing termy or landraider coming out before passing 20 minute mark in the match.

Tier 3
If you didn't manage to finish the game before T3, your chance to win become more slim because SM is considered to be the strongest faction in T3. SM won't go for Predator as it doesn't have high hit points and IG AV is quite scary even for a T3 tank. So your opponent will most likely go for a Land Raider or termy. Termy will be equipped with either lightning claw or heavy flamer to force off your infantry and hold VPs while Land Raider can be used to lock down a VP. If IG has reached this point and SM preserved his units well in previous engagements, it is safe to say IG has lost the game.

Baneblade is not going to arrive in time so your only option is to use Leman Russ. However, only having LR in your army is useless. LR must be joined by chimera and manticore to be effective. You must preserve those two units. Predator can be easily countered by whatever T2 AV you purchased beforehand and Land Raider is too expensive and has limited av strength to be cost efficient. Therefore, most SM will go for termy. In case of termy, use executioner LR. In case of Land Raider trying to set up shop near a VP, use vanquisher LR and las cannon HWT while using chimera as well although it is a rare occurrence to see a Land Raider coming out in 1 v 1. The real pain in the ass is FC with terminator armor and a flamer. Unlike normal terminators he can retreat and come back out so quickly while being much stronger than normal termy vs infantry and he frees up other marines to focus on av role. There is nothing you can do about him cost efficiently if you have not pressured and damaged SM in anyway possible beforehand.

Surprisingly Assault Termy is quite easy to counter. Whether it equips lightning claws or just fight with default hammer doesn't matter as long as you keep your chimera alive. Just drive off, unload, shoot and repeat this process again and again until it is forced off. Of course, you are dead if your chimera goes down so keep it alive. If you are unsure you can micro well against Assault Termy, just use Inq as your commander. Her crossbow bolt pistol and excruciator will root down termy forever with a single well timed click.

[Hesus]

This is some really insightfull stuff! I'm gonna try and work it into my IG play style;

[Impregnable]

This is some really insightfull stuff! I'm gonna try and work it into my IG play style;

Just remember that this is from Retribution 1-1. Things can be quite different in Elite 1-1.

[Crewfinity]

probably the biggest change in that matchup is that IG has spotters now, which are essentially a dedicated setup team counter.

other notable changes in the matchup:

leman russ got a big change - no more damage resistance but a lot more health, and costs more
baneblade is much cheaper - borderline affordable in some 1v1s now
catachans got weaker - no longer roflstomp things as hard as they used to
scouts are a bit more durable with the infiltration upgrade - not as easy to focus with the sentinel when they get that
default manticore got significantly weaker - gets back some damage with the upgrade though

[Torpid]

Manticores are mostly useless in 1v1, even more so in retail where they cost 100 power.

I'm pretty sure lemans don't have any damage resistance in retail, so they're basically just bad predators. Slowly and with less dps for a small bit more health.

Guardsmen are not viable to fully upgraded in retail due to their insanely high uppkeep cost. In elite they have way way way less upkee. The leaders take up half the pop, which is huge. And the base upkeep is lower meaning now 3x GM builds are viable and getting commies in t2 is not merely viable but recommended!

Ogryns also got a lot of buffs and in general are much more useful in the overall elite meta compared to retail. So I'd use them more so than this 'guide' recommends.

I don't think this guide even applies to 1v1 in retail though. But what can I say... Old-school dow2 players couldn't play dow2. With time and more games to take from the sample size we learn objectively strategies. And the meta develops with that. Put simply these tactics only worked because people knew no better. Plasma dev spammers and manticore users are classed as noobs these days whereas they won tournaments in early ret.

IG in 3.19 are not viable at all at high level in 1v1 in every MU on every map. Only thing they can really beat is LA and apo.

[Impregnable]

Manticores are mostly useless in 1v1, even more so in retail where they cost 100 power.

I'm pretty sure lemans don't have any damage resistance in retail, so they're basically just bad predators. Slowly and with less dps for a small bit more health.

Guardsmen are not viable to fully upgraded in retail due to their insanely high uppkeep cost. In elite they have way way way less upkee. The leaders take up half the pop, which is huge. And the base upkeep is lower meaning now 3x GM builds are viable and getting commies in t2 is not merely viable but recommended!

Ogryns also got a lot of buffs and in general are much more useful in the overall elite meta compared to retail. So I'd use them more so than this 'guide' recommends.

I don't think this guide even applies to 1v1 in retail though. But what can I say... Old-school dow2 players couldn't play dow2. With time and more games to take from the sample size we learn objectively strategies. And the meta develops with that. Put simply these tactics only worked because people knew no better. Plasma dev spammers and manticore users are classed as noobs these days whereas they won tournaments in early ret.

IG in 3.19 are not viable at all at high level in 1v1 in every MU on every map. Only thing they can really beat is LA and apo.

Thanks for the insight Torpid. This post was originally posted to get this sort of reaction but back then Eldar vs IG was broken as shit with newly added Exarch to DA so people all went to comment Eldar vs IG post I made. Overall, it is safe to say this thread's purpose is done. He exactly answered the difference between retail and elite in terms of IG vs SM match up. That was what I wanted to know.