Try and avoid fair fights until you get flamers and one SG upgrade, as even with dancing you’ll be hard pressed to put the shees/sluggas down before they get in your face. With that upgraded little mob, you can focus down any infantry squad extremely quickly. It’s also helpful to get purification rites as apoth, as that knocks back enemy units around your heal target, usuful if they manage to tie up the tacs.

It is a lot of power invested in T1, and feels wrong from a 1.32 pace, but 1.4 is a different game. Sorry for the TLDR.

As for the game itself, well, it’s a fast paced RTS. If he was looking for a replication of the tabletop game he needs to look elsewhere. I might agree on information about unit roles, but realistically they’re usually pretty obvious in their nature. Assault Marines with jetpacks and power swords are obviously meant for lightning raids and disruption. Devastator Marines have huge support weapons they lug around and set up so they’re clearly for area defence / suppression. This carries across the other races as well, Tyranids are a bit more obscure admittedly since they don’t carry obvious weapons, but you learn fast enough through experience. If he’s that worried just load up a skirmish game and experiment with unit types.

Whether you like the game itself depends on how you feel about fast paced, squad level RTS’s. It’s pretty intense and tactical when in a tight match, you need to be paying attention to your squads and thinking about the meta-game (do I push more units out now? Do I save resources to Tech up and bring this counter out instead?).

for anyone who’s interested there are match replays with commentary ….

http://www.esl.eu/eu/dow2/news/92452/

( as linked from community.dawnofwar2 )

Orks start with a single slugga squad, and 500 req, just like everyone else. You’ve got just as much time to get out appropriate units to deal with them, you just have to micro more and pay attention. As soon as you see who the sluggas are going after, pull them back and let your other ranged units chew them up while they chase your first squad around. There’s also usually plenty of structures around on most maps; orcs will have trouble getting anyone out of a structure until they spend for a burna or stickbommas, usually enough time for you to get shotguns or flamers on your tacs. Its crucial you just not lose any units in that first contact, dont be afraid to retreat off the bat if you don’t think its going to go well, but don’t expect to be able to out-melee any orcs right off the bat. Perhaps use the FC for distraction to soak up damage while you hit with range. Point is plenty of options, things aren’t unbalanced.

Orks seem to have gotten the best of the boost this time, am having quite a bit of fun with them. The nerf to the trophy rack is forcing a lot more interesting gear combos now. Although stickbomma damage is lowered, they are much better disruption troops now, especially with extended throw range

SM are -not- underpowered, you just can’t use the same tactics. Early flamers on tac squads are more than capable of deailng with most problems, and they destroy power nodes very fast. Banshee spam is easily dealt with with flamers on tacs and a shotgun or two. The TM boost is also very nice, with standard ranged damage boosted quite a bit, and plasma pistol with overcharge doing very nasty damage to infantry. The change to heavy armor for most SM is quite nice, makes it a bit easier for the rest of us to have a chance versus tac blobs.

Eldar have done very well this patch as well, the new shuriken on the wraithlord is quite nice, as are a few other changes.

Nids I’ve played the least with on the new patch, but they do require more attention than just warrior spamming in 1.3

Overall very pleased with the changes, extended T1 is much more fun now that it’s not just a race to t2.

Space Marines took a ding, though. A bit too much, if you ask me. Maybe it’s just my lackluster skills, but it seems that their Tier I guys didn’t get a commensurate buff with the others. They’re getting hacked apart in most every match I play. And they’re STILL expensive, so by the time you can afford upper tier monstrosities like Dreadnoughts and Predators, you’re already being overrun by armies who didn’t waste resources on fragile (and now dead) troops.

Feedback in the forums seems to echo this, so I’m glad that a.) I’m not the only one and b.) there’s enough of an uproar about it that Relic might give our favorite Space Linebackers a little bit of a tweak before the patch goes out to the masses.

Oh, and a personal, inexplicably esoteric note: I have always loved being able to observe AI battles. Now I can. Elated.