Seraphim OP?

[Unsanctioned Goof]

Started a new planetary supremacy game just now. Didn't even get past the initial mission cus of all the Seraphim that the game chose to throw at me. eventually got boxed in by 3 squads of them 2 with inferno pistols. No joke in the space of 4-5 turns i lost my Captain, Priest, 2 squads of Assault Marines, 2 Intercessor squads AND a squad of Hellblasters. Barely killed any of them in return, like, that's overpowered right?

[Falaris]

That does sound OP. But, this is a turn based tactical game. The idea is to use your units in a way to effectively fight the opponent, and there's definitley a way to fight them effectively, and there are ways to throw your units away without effect. If you do the latter, then there are other reasons than that the enemy units are OP that you got casualties.

Units with pistols, for instance - also inferno pistols - will massacre anyone charging at them from the front. Instead, jump behind them and then attack. Attack them with ranged troops. If you do have to attack them in melee from the front, walk up to them and then attack, rather than use charging. See if that helps.

If that doesn't help, you'd have to give a bit mroe detail about how the fight went.

But if it's a consolation - yeah, seraphim with infenro pistols have an absolutely lethal combination of firepower and mobility. They can one or two-shot Tyrannofexes and I deal with them very, very carefully. They are VERY expensive, though.

[Primagen]

This is what happens when you do not main Necrons... you think Seraphim are OP...

[Unsanctioned Goof]

Originally posted by Falaris:

That does sound OP. But, this is a turn based tactical game. The idea is to use your units in a way to effectively fight the opponent, and there's definitley a way to fight them effectively, and there are ways to throw your units away without effect. If you do the latter, then there are other reasons than that the enemy units are OP that you got casualties.

Units with pistols, for instance - also inferno pistols - will massacre anyone charging at them from the front. Instead, jump behind them and then attack. Attack them with ranged troops. If you do have to attack them in melee from the front, walk up to them and then attack, rather than use charging. See if that helps.

If that doesn't help, you'd have to give a bit mroe detail about how the fight went.

But if it's a consolation - yeah, seraphim with infenro pistols have an absolutely lethal combination of firepower and mobility. They can one or two-shot Tyrannofexes and I deal with them very, very carefully. They are VERY expensive, though.

Basically what happened is, i was moving my bois up to track down and kill the last group of SoB but as i did the 3 aforementioned units of Seraphim and a penitent engine boxed my lads in. Now in this position both forces are toe to toe, literally and knowing how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unfair RNG is sometimes i wasn't prepared to fall my guys back incase the zone control reactions killed them off. So I kill the Engine with the Captain and do little to no damage to the Seraphim as they're in flight mode, and as we all know, flying targets take no damage from point blank fire. (no seriously they don't i've seen it happen) Essentially its the beginning of the end from here. Because the next turn both my Priest and Captain die to inferno pistols, from full health i might add, and even if i fell back no amount of distance would be far enough that the Seraphim couldn't close and kill from. Everyone get slaughtered. Game over.

[Falaris]

One of the oddities is that you can use melee against flying. That works just fine, and the captain is VERY good at that - it's a vastly better option than his dinky pistol. Same with priest.

You mention flying units take no damage from ranged. Here's how it works.
(The numbers are made up, it's a while since I played last and while it's not too far off, it's probably not entirely accurate.).

An intercessor has 80% base accuracy. Its optimal range is 4 squares with 10 falloff. That means that each square 'off' optimal range gives -10% chance of hitting, so at 3 and 5 squares it's -10%, 2 and 6 -20, 1 and 7 -30.

In addition, if it's in close combat, non-pistol weapons get -40% chance to hit. That'w why you observe the 'can't hit against lfying', you get -70% chance to hit with intercessors. But if you have pistols at close range, that's not reduced at (sometimes -10% if it has 2 base range.).

That's part of what makes seraphims with inferno pistols such a pain. They can easily get point blank to your ranged troops and 'lock' them into an extremely unfavorable fight.

The solution is to have other nearby units peel them off.

But you did mention you had assault squads as well, they should definitely have used melee, especially if your priest could have buffed them.

Seraphim Inferno infantry are very powerful - I think the infenro upgrade costs 60 points; when a weapon upgrade alone cost almost as much as an intercessor squad, that is bad news. Seraphim are already a fairly expensive unit. Those two Inferno Seraphim cost as much as 3-4 of your (cheaper) untis. Then add another Seraphim and Penitent engine - I don't think it's OP, but it's definitely P.

They are, in my opinion, a bigger threat than the Penitent engine and would have been a better focus target.

(The PE is good against squads, though, but not big single units like the Captain and Priest.).

To learn the rules and what works, what don't, and why not, when you want to attack a unit, left click on it first while your own unit is selected. You'll get a list of attack modifiers, so you'll know how and why things go as they do. It's very useful.

Lastly.. it has been mentioned that you're not supposed to win without taking losses. Part of the problem is that early on, you definitely can. But as battles get bigger, you'll take losses. Sometimes it's inevitable. An exocrine can, with decent RNG, one-shot a squad; that's working as intended. I like keeping troops alive and see them do well in battle after battle, but in the end, they are expendable. If you take casualties... take it as a learning experience and move on. They don't really cost you much.