Dawn of War 2

Dawn of War 2: Retribution is a game about capturing points on the battlefield. Generally speaking, players call the capture mechanism capping and to capture is abbreviated to cap.

This is the fifth and final part of the guide. Check out the previous parts of this guide: one, two, three, four.

Advanced - Part 2

The tips of this section are advanced. You must master them to play Dawn of War 2: Retribution at a high level.

Capture prevention

Since a capture is always performed by a single entity, you have to target this entity to deny the capture. The capturer is the one to shoot down. When an enemy squad is capturing, you must recognize the capturer amongst the models of the squad in order to target him. He is always the closest to the point, though with high-model-count squads it can be difficult to tell.



Attacks and abilities must be adjusted to consistently killing or moving away the capturer. This is your top priority. To do so, you may follow these general rules:

• Turn your ranged units toward the capturer, with the lowest number of enemy units between him and them to minimize fire spread.
  
• Guide your melee attacks according to the capturer's location within the squad. Exploit the melee skill mechanism – i.e. do not only focus the capturer but also surrounding squads if they have a melee skill inferior to the capturer's – so your units will trigger special attacks that do knockback and might affect the capturer, especially if they perform 360 degree specials.
  
• Direct your grenades and knockback abilities in a way that they will hit the capturer. You must wonder about where the units will be knocked over, and how high the damage done by these abilities is. For example, a grenade does maximum damage but little knockback at the center of its explosion. Therefore, if the capturer has enough health to survive the grenade, it may be a better idea to throw the grenade slightly next to him to make the most of it.
  
• Save abilities that do ability knockback for when they will be critical, above all if you know that the enemy has weapon knockback resilient units which have not showed up yet.

Harassment and Ninja Capping

It is one thing to capture points in the enemy territory when your opponent's main force falls back. It is a different and much more risky thing entirely when enemy troops are still around.

The strategy that consists in capturing your opponent's points while his army is still on the field, in order to compromise his economy, is called harassment. For instance, requisition harassment is the action of de-capturing the natural requisition points of your opponent.



Victory point and power harassment exist in the very same way. That said, power harassment mainly describes an assault upon your opponent's natural power node and generators – if so the capture of the point is subsidiary. Nevertheless, the units you dedicate to harass may encounter enemy power points that are not upgraded with a node; to capture them will obviously inflict power losses to your opponent.

Harassment is a key to victory – it is indeed very rewarding: not only your opponent loses resources, but he is also forced to dedicate units to get back his natural points, which results in a weaker field presence. In high level games, harassment starts at the beginning of the game and never really stops. You must perform harassment as soon as you can, and mostly you must deny the de-capturing of your natural points.





What about ninja capping? You probably heard this term before. Because the game is won through victory point control, victory point harassment is generally much more important than others. In fact, you can win the game by capturing over and over the three victory points without committing your units into a fight.

Such a strategy is called ninja capping – an expression that may also mean harassment as a whole. Ninja capping requires several swift units that move across the map and do nothing but to capture victory points, sometimes under enemy fire. It is very map dependent. Most of the time, this strategy is applied when your opponent has few victory points left, however his army is stronger than yours. The basic idea is to force your opponent to split up his troops.

You must read through your opponent's behavior every time he decides to start ninja capping. To do and to prevent ninja capping requires very good micro-management, especially when your units are at a disadvantage as far as speed is concerned. On the first hand, when you defend your points, bear in mind that:

• You only need to hold two victory points to win.
  
• You should dedicate one unit to capture the third victory point while defending the two others.
  
• To lose control over the area where the third victory point is located is not a major issue.

On the other hand, when you have to capture, do it carefully. Estimate the positions and strengths of enemy troops when you decide which point you'd better capture. When one of your units is capturing, remember that:

• The capture is your top priority, you should not interrupt it even if your unit is under attack.
  
• You should move away but not retreat when your opponent manages to prevent the capture – unless, obviously, your unit's life is endangered. Indeed, not to retreat but disappearing in the fog of war exerts a pressure on your opponent.
  
• You have to use abilities and global spells – particularly the ones that reduce incoming damage – and to tie enemy ranged troops up in melee, so the capture will succeed in spite of enemy attempts to deny it.
  
• You can overwhelm your opponent by either capturing several points at the same time with few units, or a single point with several units as to capture this point no matter the price.

End of the guide. I hope it will help you enhance your capturing skills. Don't hesitate to leave a comment. Thank you for reading.