Dawn of War Codex

Not in base stats or anything, but his fleshhooks ability that it gets has access to by default. Compared to what most other races have when it comes to single unit stuns/pulls, it's a pretty powerful ability since he gets it by default.

The Inquis gets a stun, but she has to channel that and stand still for a few seconds. The Sorceror has vestments that teleports a unit/hero to them, and also has an ability/red (I dunno which) that lifts up a unit and prevents them from doing anything (I remember reading that the unit lifted gets a slight damage resistance while up since it's a pretty powerful ability sometimes, I could be wrong though.) The Apoth gets a combi bolter wargear that disables a unit, not sure if that's t2 or not, but it is a wargear. Not sure what Orks get, and it's been a bit since I've faced Eldar besides a warlock.

My main issue is that these flesh hooks pull a unit, isolating it from the army/squad. This is absolutely deadly early game and pretty much guarantees a model loss, or in the case of Die last squads, an entire squad loss. If we compare this ability to others, it seems like a pretty powerful ability when looking at the others. Most races that utilize an ability that pulls a unit usually get access to it by t2, or through a wargear in t1 earliest (Can't think of any though). The Lictor gets this by default.

Maybe I'm just trash and don't know how to counter this since I am an IG main, but I've played all 3 heroes as IG against a competent player with Lictor and it was pretty much impossible to do anything early game, actually I never made it to t2 because my Guard Sgts would get pulled and hormagaunts would rip through the Sgt as his squaddies died running to him while termagaunts peppered everything else. Retreating doesn't help since the bodies get in the way and hormagaunts will keep pace until the speed boost kicks in. It'd almost always result in a squad loss, or that squad immediately being sent back to HQ with heavy losses, with the engagement being lost soon after.

Personally, I think this ability is too powerful to have in the early game and the starting ability of the lictor should be changed to something else. Though I would like discussion on this since maybe some of you may think the ability might be fine as is.

Did a test with Shroom (thanks btw).

1. I had 1 Lictor with 1 Terma and 1 Horma squad, testing against 1 guard squad with a Sgt. I did the hooks landing the Sgt not too close to the Hormas unfortunately, so they had to run and leap at him, the guard squad got down to half hp.

2. 1 Lictor 2 Horms. Pulled the sgt with the horms infront of lictor, GM squad got down to 5% hp before the sgt got out of the kill circle.

Ways that you can get out of it seemed to require some decent micro. Retreating the guard squad right away when getting pulled and sending a cata grenade launcher where the sgt lands to prevent him from getting swarmed. You can also retreat right away the moment you see the lictor if you anticipate the lictors hooks, and if you're using the LC you can execute right away; a bit of anticipation and concentration required to pull that off I imagine.

Good info, though I still think the hooks overperform against IG especially. I imagine other races won't suffer as much if they don't have die last models.

The problem isn't flesh hook it's the die last mechanic. Make die last models untargettable or remove die last and make the repurchase price much lower.

Flesh hook is strong but the Lictor is weak apart from that ability (out the gate). Same as Sorceror, Doombolts can wipe squads on a good hit but apart from that he offers barely anything at the start of the game.

just press X wtf? its not that hard to press retreat before the model gets hooked
its an ability that works for like 5 minutes of the game then becomes useless once your enemy hits his first powerspike

hiveminion wrote:The problem isn't flesh hook it's the die last mechanic. Make die last models untargettable or remove die last and make the repurchase price much lower.

Flesh hook is strong but the Lictor is weak apart from that ability (out the gate). Same as Sorceror, Doombolts can wipe squads on a good hit but apart from that he offers barely anything at the start of the game.

I think I agree, I also like your suggestion, my idea would've been to have the die last mechanic disable if the sgt/commissar was too far from other models although I'm not sure if that's possible. Though fleshhooks is still an ability that isn't matched by other faction until at least t2 with the pull and knockdown.

@PianoMan You must've missed how I mentioned you can retreat right away, however that doesn't seem like a good idea since you need to anticipate which guard squad will be targetted (as most starting IG armies have 2 Guard squads) and then retreat immediately. I don't like the idea of a t0 ability being able to just insta route or almost destroy a squad, that just doesn't feel healthy for the state of the game. Doombolts are of similar concern because of how much damage they can dish out so early paired with consume.

you dont need to anticipate anything in your scenario, just be ready to press the hotkeys?

Wikkyd wrote:Did a test with Shroom (thanks btw).

happy to help

PianoMan wrote:you dont need to anticipate anything in your scenario, just be ready to press the hotkeys?

So Fleshook is now an auto-route ability? Cool!

Antandron wrote:

PianoMan wrote:you dont need to anticipate anything in your scenario, just be ready to press the hotkeys?

So Fleshook is now an auto-route ability? Cool!

obvious bait is obvious, inb4 piano still takes it

Shroom wrote:

Antandron wrote:

PianoMan wrote:you dont need to anticipate anything in your scenario, just be ready to press the hotkeys?

So Fleshook is now an auto-route ability? Cool!

obvious bait is obvious, inb4 piano still takes it

antandron is either 100% right or 100% wrong, he's never baiting