Armor types and damage Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III Guide

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War III, similarly to the older Warcraft 3, introduces several types of armor and damage types to the gameplay, which greatly affect how units will receive damage from attacks and how this value can be reduced and increased. Understanding this mechanics is key to success, especially in multiplayer games.

The type of unit armor and the damage it deals can be checked by hovering over the unit portrait.

Let's start with the armor. The game has two types - Normal armor and Heavy armor. Generally speaking, the majority of your infantry units (with the exception of a few, among other Nobz Ork faction), and a major part of the elite units are equipped with normal armor. The Heavy armor, though, is reserved primarily for more expensive vehicles and mechs such as Dreadnought, or Deff Dread. It might not seem logical that they do not directly affect the pace at which a given unit moves, but the amount of damage it will receive from individual attacks - just as in the aforementioned Warcraft 3. The type of armor can be checked by clicking on any unit - information about your armor will be displayed in the right corner of the unit window.

Moreover, units in the game can deal one of three types of damage - Normal, Armor-piercing and True Damage. They affect how much damage a given unit receives and how effective it will be in the fight against a given type of enemy units. Particular units deal following types of damage:

• Normal damage - deals 100% damage to normal armor, but only 22% to heavy armor. Units dealing this type of damage are extremely inefficient against heavy armored tanks and, in general, you should not give them the order to attack these targets.
• Armor-piercing damage - units deal 100% damage against heavy armor, but only 40% against normal armor. The difference is not as dramatic as in the case of normal damage, however, in the future, it is better to use units with this type of damage in battle against armored targets.
• True Damage - units deal 100% to all targets, including normal and heavy armor. Few units in the game deal this type of damage. Some of the elite units' abilities deal True Damage.

When creating an army, you need to take into account also the enemy troops in order to pick up the appropriate units and be able to effectively control them. Try not to recruit such units that will receive huge damage from enemy troops. It is impossible, of course, to plan everything, but you just need to know which units to direct against which.