Those darn Sards!

[Exo Etherial]

I found this out while playing a multi-game:

Ordos aren't that great against Sards. Dust scouts take at least 3-5 hits to kill just one of them. And normally you have to face down 10 or more (30 at most) of them AT A TIME. And because laser tanks (maneuverable and deadly, but weak against infantry) can't run them over, dust scouts (fast and nearly as maneuverable, effective against most infantry in large numbers but comparatively expensive when compared to the Chem Troopers) can't run over then either, and Chem. Troops (deadly effective against Infantry, moderately effective in groups against buildings) lack the range to get in close enough to take them down.

Woe would be you if you were Ordos and had to face a bunch of Sards with appropriate Elites mixed in right? Wrong! Normally by the time you'd ever have to face nightmarish amounts of Sards (and if you played right...) you'd have a goodly number of Kobras working inside of your base. If you have about 5 or more this works really well. Un-deploy them and then run over the oncoming columns with much delightful squishing noises and fun for you! The best part is that for every 4 Sards crushed you make up for one lost Kobra, so if you crush more than that (and you prolly will, Kobras have a VERY wide 'crush radius') you actually come out ahead if you lose one!

This tactic has pulled my butt out of the fire more than once. And dun give me that whining, "Oh but they are heading toward infantry rock!" Excuse. Just park your Kobras a little bit out of the rage of them and have fun blasting away! Though make sure to give them a moderately fair amount of Dust Scout protection (4-6 at least), and keep at least one Kobra un-deployed just in case they get any bright ideas to try and suddenly 'surprise' you by getting in really close to your deployed Kobra's. It takes about a second and a half to two seconds to deploy, twice that to deploy, only to have to suddenly un-deploy again because of a rush. Those seconds are precious ticks of lifeblood in RTS games; use them wisely and to deadly effect.

Well those are my thoughts! I hope somebody else will post something on how to get rid of huge numbers of Sards with the other houses. Or at least refine my strategy.

[slaphapy]

for ordos against sards i would recomend gas galore, kobras, or mortar inf.

for hark...easy, some buzzies :D

for atr... minos, snipers

and i wouldn't say that gas are "moderately" effective on buildings... one of the best rushes you can make is an ordos gas rush, because they take out buildings incredibly fast especially for their cheap price, this is very good thing because in the begining all they have to deal with is buildings and inf (what they are best at killing ;) )

[lowzeewee]

u can get fremen,they work well against those sards,a fremen warrior may take 3-4 shots to kill off one of those dudes,but when they recloak,the sards will stop,and psychologically the opponent will suddenly forget on the spot how to stop the sards and let them do their stuff.

A fedaykin will give them a copy of The Patriot each to get them to learn not to be cowards after firing rings of sonicwaves at them

[ken124578]

I almost never had have problems with enemy sardaukars, just send a few dusties in and dead is the sardaukar, as for his tanks, some lasertanks would do (you should have finished his early army by now)

[Navaros]

i am most impressed by this thread

the guy claims to be a n00b, but based on this thread i no longer believe him that he's a n00b

he's absolutely right. Sards will own the typical Ordos player. but they will not own an Ordos who is good with Kobras. most people don't even realize this and hardly build any Kobras

i stopped using Sards as a Sub-House because after winning tons and tons of Tournament games with them, I noticed that they would never do any good against an elite Ordos player 'cause of Kobras. 'course i haven't known any Ordos to actually run them over, but i s'pose that would work too. it also works really good to deploy the Kobras and let the Sards commit suicide. it don't matter what type of Sards they are either, Kobras will massacre them

[XCH]

A Fremen Warrior takes two shots to kill a regular sard and four shots to kill an elite.

I find that buzzsaws do not work against sards. In most cases there will be other troops mixed in with the sards. You might be able to kill a few sards, but you will require much more buzzsaws.

[lowzeewee]

u can use the hit and run method but time using fremen warriors to snipe or soundwave the sardies and then run!!!!!!

[Exo Etherial]

Ah, a good plan with Fremen, but what if your opponent had decided to move the Sards using the, Automatically-kill-everything-that-moves-as-you-make-your-way-to-the-enemy-base command (shift-control then click)? I mean Fremen don't get one-hit-kills, and Feyds take a little bit of priming time (the time between uncloaking, raising the gun then firing) for their sonic attack. Granted the priming time for the Sard is pretty close to the Feyd, though actually a little bit less.

Lasers tanks are good against anything on the ground (with the possible exception of massed groups of Harkonnen Troopers), however against Sards it takes a good 15-20 hits to take one of them down. You also need to implement good hit-and-run tactics to keep your tanks from being decimated. However, while Laser Tanks are maneuverable, when put into massive groups the maneuverability drops dramatically (unacceptable-losses-time!). I've found the prime range for hit-and-run is 5-7, however with such a piffling little force henpecking at them and with a small map, or even a large one, you'll still have to worry about Sards wreaking bloody havoc (unless you have deployed mortar troops, and you prolly will, then have fun harassing!) inside your base.

I agree that Buzzsaws don't work that well for their own reasons. Specifically, Saws don't have the range to use their weapons to great effect, and they are JUST weak enough to get blasted to hell before they can chop up anything.

I've also found that much the same goes for Dust Scouts. While they are very effective against players who don't know the Attack-Move command; they tend to get chewed up against those that do (once saw 10 Dust Scouts eat it to a group of 10 Sards with 5 Elites mixed in). While one-on-one a Dust Scout might own a Sard, you have to take into account the Group Factor.

Group Factor Simplified for up to 2 units:

1 unit= (X) Rate of Fire+(X) Amount of Effective Hit-points.

2 units= (2*Rate of Fire)+(1.5*Amount of Effective Hit Points)

Oh, and uh, astute observation, I'm not quite a newbie. Chronologically I am (3 weeks of ownership). Though mostly through practice, trial and error, and a fair amount of victories and losses; I have a firm understanding of the capabilities of each unit in the game. I have a deadly understanding of Ordos, Sards, Ix, and to a lesser extent Tleilaxu. Gotta love them Leeches!

My Kobra strategy works best if you want to kill the masses of Sards in the least amount of time and with the least amount of loss and/or damage to your base or units. Running over is the most efficient way to kill most infantry, and I was trying to find a way to do that with Ordos.

[ken124578]

Ah, a good plan with Fremen, but what if your opponent had decided to move the Sards using the, Automatically-kill-everything-that-moves-as-you-make-your-way-to-the-enemy-base command (shift-control then click)? I mean Fremen don't get one-hit-kills, and Feyds take a little bit of priming time (the time between uncloaking, raising the gun then firing) for their sonic attack. Granted the priming time for the Sard is pretty close to the Feyd, though actually a little bit less.

Fremenwarriors are cloaked and have a longer range then the sardaukars, the sardaukar wont go after the fremen warriors because they're cloaked again, as for the fedaykins, sending fedaykins after a group of sardaukars is just stupid :P

Lasers tanks are good against anything on the ground (with the possible exception of massed groups of Harkonnen Troopers), however against Sards it takes a good 15-20 hits to take one of them down. You also need to implement good hit-and-run tactics to keep your tanks from being decimated. However, while Laser Tanks are maneuverable, when put into massive groups the maneuverability drops dramatically (unacceptable-losses-time!). I've found the prime range for hit-and-run is 5-7, however with such a piffling little force henpecking at them and with a small map, or even a large one, you'll still have to worry about Sards wreaking bloody havoc (unless you have deployed mortar troops, and you prolly will, then have fun harassing!) inside your base.

A lasertank is an anti tank unit, no wonder it takes awhile before it can kill a sardaukar :P

I agree that Buzzsaws don't work that well for their own reasons. Specifically, Saws don't have the range to use their weapons to great effect, and they are JUST weak enough to get blasted to hell before they can chop up anything.

30 sardaukars against a single buzsaw... yes the buzsaw will be easily destroyed :P but lets switch numbers, how about 30 buzsaws against 1 sardaukar, who would win? ::)

I've also found that much the same goes for Dust Scouts. While they are very effective against players who don't know the Attack-Move command; they tend to get chewed up against those that do (once saw 10 Dust Scouts eat it to a group of 10 Sards with 5 Elites mixed in). While one-on-one a Dust Scout might own a Sard, you have to take into account the Group Factor.

Never rely on pure strength, a better thing to do was getting some mortars/kobra's depending on how late you are in the game and what kind of army your opponent has.

1 elite sardaukar can detsroy a dustscout/sandbike 1 on 1.

Group Factor Simplified for up to 2 units:

1 unit= (X) Rate of Fire+(X) Amount of Effective Hit-points.

2 units= (2*Rate of Fire)+(1.5*Amount of Effective Hit Points)

?? Yes 2 units usually cause more damage then 1 :-

Oh, and uh, astute observation, I'm not quite a newbie. Chronologically I am (3 weeks of ownership). Though mostly through practice, trial and error, and a fair amount of victories and losses; I have a firm understanding of the capabilities of each unit in the game. I have a deadly understanding of Ordos, Sards, Ix, and to a lesser extent Tleilaxu. Gotta love them Leeches!

The more you know, the better ;)

My Kobra strategy

Every strategy has been used before, though, congratulations for finding it out yourself ;) i still remember the days when it was me vs the EBFD players out there :D

[Navaros]

agreed with ken in that the only weakness in your Strat is to send Fedaykin at Sards. that is never ever a good idea because the Sards will pulverize them

of course, Warriors, if used properly, will obliterate any form of Sards - no Question about that.

[Tenzul]

Every strategy has been used before, though, congratulations for finding it out yourself ;) i still remember the days when it was me vs the EBFD players out there :D

If people rely on tips of others and won't find out how to play themselves,

the'll never get used to the game and loose easilly.

[ken124578]

If people rely on tips of others and won't find out how to play themselves,

the'll never get used to the game and loose easilly.

Wrong, giving away tips to others is good, micromanaging your army is something else, you'll probably lose if you can't micromanage it just as good or better as the one who created it.

[Dante]

I always found for Ordos the best thing to do was let the Sardaukar get close and then blast them with pop-up turrets... Of course I doubt if this would work against a player that was actually human. In that case I think Mortar and Kobras, protect them how you will.

[Devastator_Mech]

Why you's have such headache? Just use Fremen Fredaykins, they're cheap, stealthly and has high rpm, and also require less think to build than all the Sarduakars.

[lowzeewee]

Welcome back,deva mech,join me,gunwounds,nav and crazyf1 in the 'bannered' club ;)

Fremen warriors can take out sards easily.Sard Elites will find it hard to kill infantry.SO USE ANTI-INFANTRY INFANTRY.

[ken124578]

Sard Elites will find it hard to kill infantry.

Lol, sardaukar elites can kill any type of infantry unit except other sard. elite's in 1 slice.

[Devastator_Mech]

Welcome back,deva mech,join me,gunwounds,nav and crazyf1 in the 'bannered' club ;)

I wanted to reply you by messaging, but it doesn't let me because I overloaded my mail box while I've only use 9% =_="

Lol, sardaukar elites can kill any type of infantry unit except other sard. elite's in 1 slice.

He needs to be very close to the victim first, and its unlikely it can kill much before dying(usually only 2 or less) and since it takes so long to train and expensive, its not worth it.

[lowzeewee]

it becomes 'normal speed' when u get 3 sard barracks.

Anyway,how does it feel to get banned,I m writing a theory on banned pple,using me,nav,gunwounds,crazyf1 and you ;)

[ken124578]

He needs to be very close to the victim first, and its unlikely it can kill much before dying(usually only 2 or less) and since it takes so long to train and expensive, its not worth it.

That's why you never should attack with 1 unit against 2 ^-^

[lowzeewee]

but devastators can also be taken out 1 on 1,no offense,davastator mech :)

[ken124578]

I was talking about a sardaukar elite against something like a sniper.

[Devastator_Mech]

but devastators can also be taken out 1 on 1,no offense,davastator mech :)

Everything has a counter and can be beaten 1v1, nothing is an exception.

Whatever can beat a Dvastator 1v1 must be very cheap (i.e Fredaykin)shoot once from behind, maneurver and then repeat or by out ranging it (i.e missile tank/minotaurus)

I was talking about a sardaukar elite against something like a sniper.

Maybe not exactly sniper, but a sniper like unit called the Fremen Warrior....

[lowzeewee]

but fremen has cloak but devo is short range >:( -i mean warrior

[Devastator_Mech]

It has good range for an infantry unit already...

[lowzeewee]

yeah.......like nav would say,too expensive,blah blah blah