14 DAY TRIAL // Last night I was pawned, repeatedly and without mercy, no less than three times by players using the same strategy. I call it the Scout Gambit and it's the first serious use of a weakness of the Dawn of War II beta, which seems pretty much unbeatable.
The problem with all multiplayer experiences is that somewhere, someone is at this moment working on a way to take the fun out of the game for you. And you can bet that a lot of people have already created many ways of exploiting the Dawn of War II Beta for quick and somewhat dirty wins.
Lat night, I planned to take some Team Battle matches, ranked, with non Space Marine heroes. I especially wanted to see how hard it was to be efficient with the Eldar, which are incredibly fragile and even more micro management heavy than the other races. I ended up losing three matches in a row because my team mates were dropped because of lag. Which meant that I ended up being partnered up with a couple of computer allies that were pretty much brain dead, unable to mount offensives. I steeled myself, resolved not to quit the matches and tried different strategies until my Victory Points ran out and I felt the bitter taste of defeat.
Then I tried some Head to Head matches. And, man, I got beaten hard. The Scout Gambit is built around Scout Marine Squad. They are cheap, less than half the price of the Tactical Marines. They move fast and, after you upgrade to the second level of tech, you can given them shotguns, who have a knock back effect and also allow them to infiltrate, which makes them more or less invisible. Players create three or four squads at the beginning, using one or two caps, while using two with the hero, usually a Force Commander. Then, they quickly go to level 2, add shotguns and aim to bring in a Dreadnought while the opponent is still stuck fighting the shotgun wielding Scouts. It worked for me and from the chat I had with my opponent, it seems that the strategy is becoming more and more popular in the beta. Let's see how Relic addresses it and other issues like this for the final release.