Dawn of War II - Walkthrough - Day 8 extra deployment 2 - Lord of Wraiths

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There are three remaining missions as a day has not yet passed:

• Meridian (1 foundry) - Lord of Wraiths
• Calderis (3 foundries) - Hand of the Hive Mind, Greenskin Weaponsmith (added by completing Greenskin Armour)

All offer a Communications Array; the Meridian mission also offers a Shrine. We chose to now do the Meridian mission and capture the Shrine even though Meridian is not yet under Tyranid infestation. Having the Shrine will not change initial infestation values but will offset increases when it happens. Communications Arrays are still deprioritized at this point.

Mission 14 Lord of Wraiths

• Day 8 extra deployment 2/2, Fury 5, Resilience 5, Speed 1 (50 minutes).
• Infestation: Calderis 3, Typhon 5, Meridian 0
• Sometimes the game glitches (?) and even before you get to the Wraithlord, you will receive a notification and the Wraithlord health bar will show. IMMEDIATELY pause the game and start looking around because shortly after, Seer Councils may come after you. The Wraithlord is scripted to stay in his arena at the other end of the map, but the Seer Councils will beeline for you, and even a single one is devastating at range and in melee.
• Because there weren't a lot of melee units, I found a Flamer on the Force Commander to be useful against the Eldar which were frequently in cover.
• We specialized the Force Commander in Ranged combat and probably for that reason his melee attacks could not kill a Grav Platform quickly enough.
• In any case, the melee units on this map are very strong and swarm quickly so any melee squad is in trouble if they try going toe-to-toe (on Primarch difficulty). A flamer let us hit them all in one go, supporting any units that got caught in melee.
• Lots of cover here and the Eldar use it, but you have to get out of cover and advance; otherwise they will stay put while their Grav Platforms with their superior range kill you. This is one of the reasons why this mission is so dangerous to your Resilience rating, and the reason we used an extra deployment to do it: We weren't going to get any Speed stars anyway.
• From the upper gardens, you can grenade the lower walkways. If you look at the map top-down, maximum throw radius still determines how far you can throw without your unit moving to close the distance. However, your actual throw will be slightly farther than that.
• The Melta-Bomb is important here as Eldar vehicles move quite quickly.
• If you have it, you can probably skip bringing the missile launcher, but make sure you have enough Melta-Bombs to go around.
• Melta-Bombs are superior to grenades because they are targeted at a vehicle and will curve to follow the target. It is a guaranteed hit instead of a grenade toss where you have to predict where the target will be if it is moving.
• The grav platforms are extremely dangerous in this mission:
• They can turn and set up quickly to fire. Their arc of fire seems fairly small, however, maybe 30 degrees or so.
• Because they need to deploy, if they are charging you they cannot attack. Charge back and hit their position with two grenades. If you don't feel like leading your grenade throw against moving targets, wait for them to start deploying then pause the game and chuck your grenades.
• Another technique is to deploy your squads around a barrier or corner that does not allow shooting through it. This way, the Grav Platforms must come around the corner where they and their supporting troops will be bunched up for a grenade throw and traffic jammed if you have Cyrus shoot even one of them with a sniping rifle as that suppresses them and slows them down immediately. Once they are around the corner they still need to rotate and deploy, and this buys you time.
• On this map, with the number of stairs and levels, this is not always viable since they could deploy atop the stairs and shoot down at you. This is best used on level ground with walls or other high barriers.
• When we played this map with level 8 squads, we could not reliably kill them with a single grenade even when the grenade landed squarely on them.
• The Shuriken Cannons fire extremely fast and can take down health very quickly, but are still the least dangerous.
• The Bright Lances fire instantly and with high accuracy. It is pretty much guaranteed to kill one squad member per shot unless you have hard cover (green shield).
• The D-Cannons have a range longer than your sight range and can suddenly fire from the fog of war if you are spotted by any Eldar.
• The damage is enormous and on Primarch will typically kill any squad caught in the blast unless they are at the edge. Even then you will probably lose some squad members.
• Once they start charging up, they cannot adjust their blast location and you can try to move a squad sideways or possibly right at them.
• At a moderate distance, a squad continuously moving sideways can avoid being hit, allowing another squad to shoot at it or try to flank it and throw a grenade.
• If you move behind cover and out of line of sight, it will abort its shot.
• Unlike ranged infantry, platforms are NOT tied up by melee and can still fire. This is probably because a platform does not have a melee attack, whereas infantry can still fight hand-to-hand with their guns in hand.
• They do not need a clear line of fire if they have spotters, and seem to ignore cover.
• They can be suppressed like infantry, so if you need to buy time you can have Cyrus snipe them to give you an opening to throw grenades. Suppressed units usually wander around sort of randomly, but it's hard to predict how long they will remain suppressed.
• Avitus can outdistance their sight range with his weapons, but they have much longer range and on the map they often have other units in front of them as spotters to extend their firing range.
• Cyrus is probably the safest one to use to take them out.
• You should take Cyrus on this mission because he can scout ahead to see where platforms are and what attack group are headed your way.
• If a grenade cannot kill the platform outright, once you have tossed the grenade, immediately direct Cyrus to fire on the platform. The combined damage will hopefully be enough to kill it.
• To give yourself some extra time, position Cyrus in a flanking position compared to the Grav Platform's current weapon firing arc.
• Prioritize hitting D-Cannons and Bright Lances. Shuriken Cannons are dangerous, but the least so.
• A High-Powered Shot should be able to kill a platform outright, and from a safe distance. Since a High-Powered Shot executes quite quickly, you could kill two Grav Platforms in short order before retreating by throwing a grenade on one Grav Platform, firing on the target to make sure it is destroyed, and then using High-Powered Shot on another Grav Platform. (All this assuming you do not yet have Advanced Infiltrate which lets you use accessories without revealing yourself.)
• Supply crates are rare initially until you get to Teleport Relays or one of the strategic points on the map.
• You will probably want to save your Melta-Bombs for the tough vehicles on this map, so give Cyrus grenades and the remote detonator, and maybe the Melta-Bombs to the Force Commander. On the map there is a Wraithguard with a sword and weak shuriken cannon, a Falcon with a strong long-ranged scatter laser, and the Wraithlord mission-target boss.
• Detonation Charge Packs can sometimes also work if you snipe and throw one immediately. Before the unit comes out of suppression, the Pack should blow.
• Blind Grenades will work on Grav Platforms, probably because the gunner is exposed.
• Another technique is to deploy your squads around a barrier or corner that does not allow shooting through it. This way, the Grav Platforms must come around the corner where they and their supporting troops will be bunched up for a grenade throw and traffic jammed if you have Cyrus shoot even one of them with a sniping rifle as that suppresses them and slows them down immediately.
• On the southeast side there are two shuriken cannon grav platforms guarding the bridge. The one on the left/west can be quite safely bombarded with grenades from the terrace above if you get close enough. The one on the right/east can shoot through the floor. If you stand back far enough it will not be able to but you can still bombard it with grenades.
• There are two vehicles on this map: A Falcon (typically near the Shrine to the northwest) and a Wrathguard (near the centre, walks right through an otherwise normally impassable barbed wire barrier).
• The Wraithguard is the regular-sized version of the giant Wraithlord you will fight. Its sword attack has good range and sometimes just hits, even though you don't see the sword moving. Keep your distance unless you are willing to sacrifice a squad member.
• The Wraithlord has three special attacks:
• Shuriken Cannon suppression fire - When the targeting rune is under one of your squads.
• This is the most dangerous as it executes quickly. The radius of the attack is much wider than the rune on the ground.
• Avitus's squad of devastators typically cannot exit the target area in time. You will probably have to signal a Retreat or lose the entire squad.
• Force wave - When the targeting rune is centered on the Wraithlord.
• Radius is quite wide.
• The explosion is fast, so you are either out already or you are blasted.
• If you react quickly enough, when it announces this attack you can lob a grenade at it before fleeing.
• As soon as it explodes, you can probably start moving back in to shooting range.
• Fault line
• Similar to Gutrencha's attack, but a different colour.
• The Wraithlord launches a jagged lightning-like column on the ground. Explosions follow the line shortly after.
• Reinforcement squads for the Wraithlord boss come from the Communications Array side of the garden, near the stairs leading down.
• They just magically appear, so if you are nearby you could be surrounded and tied up in melee with Banshees.
• There are two calls for reinforcement: At around 75% health and around 25% health.
• If you stay on the other side, they might not detect you or will at least be delayed.
• You could plant a Remote Detonator there and as soon as they appear, trigger it to clear them all immediately. The Wraithlord does not normally wander that far unless in pursuit, and even if it is near the centre of a Remote Detonator blast, the health it loses is comparable to a grenade hit.