Using Combat Energy

Using the right tactics in the right situation is crucial to keeping casualties low. You start with energy and get more as you destroy buildings. Before you even deploy your troops you can destroy some of the most dangerous turrets/heroes. This can be done using the Summon Titan, Orbital Strike and Deathstorm battle tactics.

Tip: Don't forget to keep enough energy to deploy your units when using raptors or glaives.

After you deploy your troops, use Beacon to direct your troops and Haywire/Dominate to avoid taking damage from remaining turrets. You can destroy turrets with tactics after deployment but beware of friendly fire. Loyalists can also heal units with Servo-Heal and Chaos can boost their damage/speed with Bloodlust.

Because each tactic increases in cost every time you use it, using a mix of different tactics will be most effective. For example, you could use 3 deathstorms to destroy a beamer, or 2 deathstorms and 2 orbital strikes. The latter will cost less because the first two uses of deathstorm will make the 3rd one much more expensive than two orbitals. Of course, if you know you need some orbitals later on, you may want to avoid using them early, to prevent them becoming too expensive later.

Here are some tips on using each of the tactics:

Beacon

Use beacon to direct your troops along a certain attack path or to focus down key turrets. Be careful as units moving towards a beacon will clump together. Make sure you are not moving past or through turrets that do splash/area damage (e.g. flamers, volkites).

Orbital Strike

Use to take out smaller turrets (e.g. flamers, lascannons), or heroes. Can also be used to finish off a few heavily wounded turrets if they are tightly clumped. Be careful as it does friendly-fire.

Deathstorm

Use to take out clustered buildings or mines. Also very effective against large buildings like beamers or whirlwinds. Be careful as it does friendly-fire, and there is a delay from when you launch it to when it lands. Generally better used before your troops are in the battle.

Servo-Heal

Use in the second half of the battle to keep wounded units alive a little longer. It's generally better to destroy or disable turrets with your energy, but by the second half of the battle, those tactics may be getting quite expensive.

Bloodlust

Use once your units start attacking the base to do extra damage early on.

Haywire

Use this to disable multiple clustered turrets. It can be used against heroes that ride vehicles (e.g. Archmagos Draykavac). Be careful as it will disable your own vehicles if they are in the target area.

Dominate

Use this to take control of high-powered turrets (e.g. beamers, gravitons). It lasts longer than a haywire so it can also be useful to disable a single turret.

Fun Fact: This base can be destroyed without deploying a single troop, by repeatedly dominating the graviton on the right.

Summon Titan

The titan is all around good and should is useful more often than not. It is especially good with tightly clustered buildings as the missles set neighbouring buildings on fire. You usually want to deploy before anything else, though when using units/heroes with curse, it can be even more effective against cursed buildings. It won't usually destroy many buildings, but it will weaken the whole base, making it easier to finish turrets off with orbitals or deathstorms.

The titan does not do friendly-fire.

Note: To get access to the titan, you must complete the Prime Objective with level 40. This base is difficult but much easier once you have access to raptors. See Appendix B for tips on defeating this base.