Guide to all Races of Ultimate Apocalpse (Discontinued)

A Guide overviewing all the races in UA explaining their strengths and weakness as well as a overall guide on how combat is different than vanilla Soulstorm

First and formost

This guide overviews the version of Ultimate apocalypse that has been updated by Salcols fanmade patch, it does not Overview base UA as of version 1.88.6

Space marines(AKA Our Face is our Shield)

Probobly the most iconic of the warhammer 40k factions it is also a popular choice among many players, space marine units are tanky,expensive and can hit hard while their vehicles are also no joke as well,the predator tank being able to take on lemun russes with little issue. Space marines have a very strong tier zero. tactical marines are very useful now, and assault marines were toned down, in how powerful they are. bikes are still a great unit to use to deal with tarpits and keep melee units off your tactical marines.

Tier 1
this is where things start to kick up for most factions and at this tier they will probobly have weapons that can deal with your heavy armor, your units will prob start dying pretty fast at this tier if you aren't careful but its managable, in compairison to normal UA your heroes are still powerful but they were toned down and most factions have the tools to deal with them now so you have to be careful to try to keep them from getting overwhelmed by anti commander units, devs are very cost effective dps but if you just need something to stand in front of them and take shots, tactical marines are still cost effecient in that regard.most the vehicles at this tier unfortunatly are still not entirely worth it

Tier 2
while still a good tier for space marines due to their heroes and unit scaling, they don't get the best option open up for them, but there is a improvement. sternguard are goodish but there isn't much they can do that devs can't do better or equally as well. vehicle options are fairly Ok with the newer dreadnoughts, but dreadnoughts aren't the same monsters in UA and you will find them die fairly fast to anti vehicle fire but they can tank some fire and tie up a few squads for your own to start really dealing the hurt.

Tier 3
Now this is the tier everyone starts dreading when space marines hit it, you get access to predator tanks finally and get access to the infamous terminators, which rip through enemy lines like a hot knife through butter with their upgrades and assault cannons. the predators and sternguard get access to currently Overpowered Grav gun weaponry incase you wanted to delete enemy tier 4 titans in a matter of seconds while your heroes get a upgrade that suits them up in termie armor making them even more formidable.

Tier 4
tier 4 for you is mostly just a upgrade of tier 3, you get some better upgrades but the biggest things in this tier are the Reaver titan and the emperors armory. The reaver titan is a extremely good titan that all imperial factions have and the emperors armory provides your space marines with even more buffs to overpower the enemy with.

tier 5
this tier is almost the same with every faction, they get some form of win button or really powerful ability that generally costs a crazy amount of resources to even activate. in space marines case its battlefleet gothic which bombards the enemy from orbit until he rolls over and dies, unfortunatly for you due to the nature of the ability if he gets units in your base you end up bombarding yourself since you dont get to choose targets and it always attacks the closest.

Tau(AKA If you see us, you're in range)

Tau is one of the strongest factions at the moment due to the overwhelming firepower they can bring to the field just at tier 1 and up, their units are really squishy in the case of their infantry units but generally you won't get to shoot at them for long if they get the first shot so that isn't too much of a issue for them. keeping the enemy at range and blowing them too hell is tau doctrine and they have many tools to keep you from getting too close. they may sound like they play like IG at first glance but the main difference is, as tau your units aren't easy to replace so losses hurt a lot more too you then a guard player.

Tier 0

Ah tau tier 0 is quite the frightening sight since they have a command squad and a commander in this tier, both make investing in their heroes quite strong early game. although id avoid building fire warriors tier 0 without their pulse rifle upgrade they die too quickly. the 2 main units you will probobly use tier 0 current is Kroot shapers and the tau commander, kroot shapers currently are nearly unbeatable in melee combat tier 0 so there is little the enemy can do to counter them, while the tau commander puts down some great crowd control and dps as soon as he gets his many weapon upgrades. stealth suits are your capping unit in this tier and should only be used as such, they are very bad at direct combat. regarding starting build order i suggest this
stealth suit-stealth suit-shaping centre-gen-gen--shapers-barracks

Tier 1
This is where the tau really start to kick up the firepower too 11 with pulse rifles on fire warriors and rail guns on pathfinders. your commander probobly has his plasma cannon now and is capable of deleteing pretty much any infantry model in a single shot, pathfinders have a amazing view range so use them to spot for your fire warriors and shoot the enemy up into oblivion, trust me very few units can withstand their dps for a decent amount of time. snare traps can really help in this tier if the enemy does actually manage to get close

Tier 2
Tau gets access to some nice toys this tier, shas'vre elites seem to melt anything with a armor rating and most infantry while they get access to another commander unit and a bodyguard unit. keep in mind tau also have tons of research to keep those fire warriors doing great dps and to help buff up their vehicles too. you're commanders will still amazing dps at this tier and are fairly hard to kill if you support and micro them well. at this tier you can fairly easily start pushing the enemy back.

Tier 3
the Units unlocked at this tier arent amazing but vespids, and the new vehicles like the hammerhead can place down some real damage and you still have the infantry advantage for the most part just watch out for t3 artillery, massed arty can really hurt tau since it outranges them and your units really, really don't like taking damage back.

Tier 4
Titan tier isn't super great for tau as their titans are still something to be desired but the Ion cannon is still a great building to force your enemies to do something and to wear down enemy forces when you see them, by this point you probobly should of been able to win the game if not just stick with a healthy unit composition of hammerheads for tanking,fire warriors and pathfinders for anti hero and anti infantry dps and some battlesuits if you can afford the cap.

Eldar

Tier 0
Eldar t0 isn't amazing but it also isn't horrid, you have two strategies you can try though, dire avenger opener and utilize the fact they are currently decent to overpowered when you get double dire avenger exarchs in Salcols 1.14 or Guardian rush opener which i Nicknamed Ulthwe tactics. Dire avengers gives you solid early game ranged unit that scales alright into t1 while the Guardian opener is essentially just surviving off plasma granade spam with 3-4 squads until you can rush T1 and take advantage of your T1 power spike. if you think it will be helpful you can invest in the autarch in either of these builds.

Tier 1
So eldar Tier is still extremely powerful if you have half a brain but essentially you have 3 main components at this tier, you have Dark reapers for Anti infantry dps, Falcon grav tanks for tanking and fire support while also having swooping hawks for backstabbing( taking out isolated Lp's and sneaking into the enemy base to blow up gens when the oppertunity is open) using these 3 units effectively is the key to your t1 and the other unit options are just more specialist options for specific situations, like stricking scorpions which are super high dps melee specialists and rangers who are long ranged anti commander. you have other vehicle options but they aren't great although the wraithlord can be tanky with the wraithtomb ability researched.

Tier 2
You get access to warp spiders, harliquins, fire dragons and some nice upgrades this tier
the main prizes at this tier though, is the seer council and hornet tanks. hornets are really amazing anti vehicle vehicles like the falcon grav tank, consider it a upgrade. and the seer council with its upgrades can be a good bullet sponge for your dark reaper core from t1. feel free to add the specilist units at this tier into your army should you need them. don't forget to get your relevent upgrades at the soulshrine and to consider getting the farseer at this time

Dark Eldar

Tyranids

Necrons(AKA Tomb Kings in space)

The Definitly-Not-Tombkings-In-Space have recieved quite the shiny new paintjob. First and foremost, power generators cost a flat amount of 75/150 for amps and normal ones respectivly. They will now only ever INCREASE in cost, namely when you build more monoltihs. However, youre no longer desperatly relying on capping enough points to not have your eco kick the bucket, no, obelisks even grant power income now. Whats more, Warriors and Flayed Ones are cheaper, and with the changed income you can actually build a combat force early on.
But don't worry, movementspeed has been increased NOTICABLY across the board. At the same time, the Summoning ability has been removed, to prevent one from deepstriking a Monolith, then dragging in the whole army after. Or simply disengaging the moment an engagment goes awry.

Also, most Necrons have morale now. Yes, that is lorefriendly. Yes, their morale is even better than Space Marines', dont worry.

What is more, all Necron "corpses" expire now. Previously, only Destroyers did so. Sorry, no more storing an army for later use.

Tier 0
The Definitly-Not-Tombkings-In-Space have recieved quite the shiny new paintjob. First and foremost, power generators cost a flat amount of 75/150 for amps and normal ones respectivly. They will now only ever INCREASE in cost, namely when you build more monoltihs. However, youre no longer desperatly relying on capping enough points to not have your eco kick the bucket, no, obelisks even grant power income now. Whats more, Warriors and Flayed Ones are cheaper, and with the changed income you can actually build a combat force early on.
And oh boy, attack scarabs! They now have an initial cost but are free to reinforce and have actually viable upgrades now. They make an excellent and cheap harrasment unit, just keep them away from grenades.
The Lord is still the good old toybox of abilites, but he isn't quite as effective in combat anymore(although that is true for quite a few commanders).Keep in mind that phase-shifted hereos can no longer move or use abilites.
Wraiths are fairly fragile now partially due to the fact that they can no longer infiltrate, but they are still the best option to quickly tie up ranged squads with little melee capabilites.
Keep in mind that the tier 1 obelisk upgrade is dirt cheap now, and Wailing Terror can be quite useful to tell fragile squads what you think of them harassing you.

Tier 1
The Overseer has been renamed to Cryptek, the ACTUAL Necron "sorcerer". That being said, he still has the same old abilites with the updated phase shifter, but now he has some additional survivability wargear, and lategame upgrades for his damaging abilites.
Immortals are still your go-to choice for murdering vehicles. Not much new here.
Destroyers have something otherwise lacking in the Necron roster: easy access to mobility. They can easily disengage or engage in melee, tying up range-superiority units, and they are durable enough to keep them in melee against such units for a while.
Tomb spyders' harvest ability has been reworked t be more reliable, although it now roots them in place. Overall they're still a tad fragile, but they're good enough to re-use bodies without a rez-orb.
Special mention to the gauss overcharge ability. It is now toggled, granting increased range and ranged dmg, but also adding a minimum range and melee vulnerability, so keep an eye on overcharged units so they don't get ripped apart in melee.

Tier 2
Sadly, vehicles still aren't really worth it at this point. Heavy Destroyers get woefully out-dps'ed by Immortals, but the same mobility and disruption rules applies to them as their light counterpart. They can also make for decent base harrasment on maps where you can attack from multiple sides, where they can outflank base defenses/armies.
Deathmarks on the other hand are an excellent anti-commander/infantry unit, and with hunters from Hyperspace have ludicrous mobility. Their upgraded weapons especially will shred through infantry and commanders alike.
Shoutout to the D-lord. no, not THAT D, the Destroyer Lord. Yoinking vehicles without cooldown(although with cast time, and he cant regenerate while possesing) can spell disaster for just about any type of army. His stasis field is also very potent, while the initial AOE is small and it affects friendly troops, it will always lock down the whole squad, telling blobs to time out big time. The lightning field will also break up blobs, or more precisly scatter them to the winds, making microing the survivos a nightmare for the enemy. Oh, and it also cleaves morale big time.

Tier 3
Skip the mobile obelisk, it's a waste of resources. Similarly, the Deathlord is not worth it if you already have 3 heores with useful abilites, who are also adequate in melee. The Deathlord isn't much better than them in combat, so he can be safely skipped too. Sentry Pylons, due to absolutely horrendous AP are also not worth it until t5, where you can get Particle Accelerators.

Very much worth it on the other hand are Monoliths. While slow, and unable to fly in this version, they still possess the ability to churn out necron warriors in an instant and soak up loads of damage. Another very, very good thing is the Nightbringer. Fairly expensive and he lost some of his defensive capabilities, but he still deals an outrageous amount of damage to anything he gets a hold of. The deciever saldy falls in the same category as the deathlord and sentry pylons, being just straight up bad. Pariahs are intereseting, in that they're not as bad as they would warrant skipping, and they're crons only dedicated demon killer unit, but the high infantry cap consumption makes them tricky to fit into an army. Unless your enemy has demons/monsters, 2 more squads of warriors will probably be more useful.
Tier 4
TITANS HO. And lychguard, but 8 cap makes them pretty much unfieldable sadly. They're just not good enough for that. At the other hand, while nerfed, all necron titans still to what they used to do. Murder things. a lot of things.
Tier 5
Not much to say here. Skip global Pylon range and focus on the Cataclysmic Obliterator. Its much more reliable, simply deleting an enemy from the map.

Orks(AKA the green Meme)

Tier 0
orks tier zero is interesting the first thing you will notice is that lp's are cheaper then others and all your buildings have guns, now its going to be hard to break things up into tiers for orks because they don't tier up in the normal fashion, their tiering happens from getting waghhh banners and the more pop upgrade on them, after that they research units in their technology tree building (pardon my lack of orky talk). banners when upgraded are extremely good early game defenses and early game orks are fairly passive, due to their rather weak units morale wise. shoota boyz with big shoota shoota's do fairly respectible dps early game while slugga boyz when fully reinforced with their leader can tank a lot of damage early game. A thing to note with orks, the more orks are in the squad the stronger those orks become. Because of the Nature of ork tiering it would be the best just to explain their troop progression in more linear manner which would be Slugga/shoota-Ard boyz-Flash gitz-Mega armored nobz for their infantry and vehicle wise i would suggest avoiding vehicles until you can get looted tanks which are really good as well as Kill bursta's. the power of orks is how powerful their units become when in numbers plus their late game economy lets them bulldoze other factions late game if you can protect your base................ that is the catch in most cases, hero's can snipe your base as currently orks lack a solid Anti commander unit so people abusing that fact and base bashing you with heroes is going to be something you will be dealing with.

Chaos Marines(WIP)

Chaos space marines are generally more damage and trickery based then their loyalist cousins at the sacrifice of equipment quality, generally using older models of gear then normal loyalist space marines, chaos marines still equal the playing field with monstorous deamon engines and demonically enhanced gear. provided to them by the dark mechanicus

T0
so you just started the match and you got some unit choices after you make your first barracks. you got basic csm and raptors as well as chaos attack bikes. all are really good choices for combat units,(I highly reccommend not using cultists t0 for anything but capping they die too quickly and are very expensive for the amount of hp they have) the simplist build to go with is double csm squad and just play defensively with minor pressure on your opponent until you can get the armory and plasma pistols for your aspiring champions from there. the chaos lord i think is a bit expensive to open t0 with but if you want to get him you can. don't forget to get at least 2 power gens before teching because you will need it. Some other builds to try is double csm into a raptor squad and go very t0 pressure heavy, or even double raptor and a single csm but with the last one since raptors are so expensive you need to do a lot of damage to make it worth it, which isn't always possible. attack bikes can also be helpful instead of raptors vs swarmy factions like guards and nids where they do good crowd control.

T1
in this tier you get access to vehicles, havoks and your two secondary heroes if you picked a mark already as well as getting your worship ability on your cultists, with some armory upgrades also being unlocked. those armory upgrades can scale your infantry a ton but are expensive so be careful which ones you grab first and when.

[Economic Terrorist]

I remember when Ultimate Apocaylpse was the top mod for Dawn of War. Nothing good lasts forever.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

sorry Nuclear birb it isn't going to happen, i'm not working on this anymore and neither are the co-writers. i apologize for getting your hopes up

[BirdyRaven]

Update?

[mjohnsimon]

can't wait for the imperial guard

[DarkPoweren]

**Beware that the guide is very outdated**.

That apert a is a very nice guide.

[Batman Kurdistan]

So is there a way to turn the permanent corpses back on? Is there some .txt or ini file I can change the limit of or is it hardcoded/packed into the game data files?

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

thanks for the kind words but i doubt i will start investing into UA again anytime soon to restructure the guide. maybe i'll go over some things when battel does another major update on salcols but i would consider this to be all but discontinued

[KingLyndon]

great guide for the most part i have noticed a fair few factions missing like the sisters of battle or the iinquisition of man really hope you update this guide at some point as alot has changed since this was made

[vailenxu]

i once played an ai game with my younger sibling against multiple AI. he broke the game by spamming the shit out of grot tanks so much that the enemy couldnt kill them and his audio was just grot alerts.

[Defileros]

can't wait for the Tyranid part, good guide btw