Much talk, no builds, you can skip this if you want, it's just so you know what you're actually learning.


These are not the best build orders ever, because the best build orders ever should be specific build orderds based on map and matchup.

(You know what map is. Matchup includes various things like what race are you playing with, how many players are, how are the teams distributed, what races are you playing against, what races are you allied with, what's the skill of your enemies and allies, as well as in game what strategies do they use in the game; build order also changes in-game according to how the enemy plays)

However, these builds orders are solid and efficent on any map and matchup against all kinds of opponents as starting build orders, until you get to know the game more in-depth and learn more specific builds or make your own good builds.


I do not know what's happening on your battlefield, I only know what's generally a good thing to do, so don't take these builds orders as dictatorial imposed rules of what you should do in order to achive absolute and concrete victory, but simply guidelines of what you should do to get your army to the next level as fast and as efficient as you can.

One example, if you're being attacked and the next thing on the build order is "build your vehicle building", you're obviosuly not going to build your vehcile building but reinforce your already existing squads and/or create new squads.


The reason for this is that I wanted to make a dedicated build orders guide only, without reaching any other area of the game, if you're looking for micro (basically your units), macro (basically everything else), army statistics or something else you'll not find it here.

But I've made some other guides on those topics that you can find on my profile in the guides section if you want. The only things off-topic to the build orders are the things I consider essential for not misinterpreting my message (because I know there are going to be players of all skill levels reading this), and I don't want to have a good build order but not attack enemies when they have to, or not defend their base when they need to, etc.

The quote I said in the title of this wasn't random, I consider knowing when to attack essential; but you should only be on offensive when your troops allow you to be on offensive, if you're going to get defeated, retreat and reinforce, when you're fighting next to your listening posts you're going to have an additional fire advantage, or you can attack lesser targets such as strategic locations (or generators if you can), but if you're already in the base and you can't retreat anymore, all you can do is fight for your life, you can still get up and win, nobody plays perfect.


There are just too many possibilites of tier 3 situations to make a general situation good build. All you need to know in tier 3 to move from "I have no ideea what I'm doing" to "I actually have an idea of what I'm doing" is that you get only a few new units but they are very powerful, superior to the ones in tier 2, and you also get a super-unit (aka relic unit) that's badass, powerful, not invincible. But then again, there's too many possible situations in tier 3 for a generally good course of action.

You start a skirmish game with:

- 1 Builder
- 1 HQ
- 1000 Requisition
- 100 Power

I'm going to refer to as:

Strategic Points = SP
Listening Posts = LP
Generators = Gen
Primary commander units = Hero
("Force Commnader", "Warboss", "Farseer", "Chaos Lord", "Command Squad", etc)

DoW Jargons: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?112328-Guide-to-abbreviations-and-slang-in-Dawn-of-War

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Barrack

- Have the HQ queue up: Scout, Builder, Scout

- When the 1st scout is created, have him capture the closest SP

- When the 2nd builder is created, have him join the builder building the barracks

- When the 2nd scout is created, have him cap another SP

- When the Scouts pairs have captured their first SP, have them capture the next SP

- When the barracks are complete, have your builders build LP on SP

- Then, have your barraks queue up Hero and 1 Tacs (Tactical Space Marines, your main infantry)

( * You're going to need that 100 early power to build your Force Commander, so make sure you don't waste it on upgrading LPs )

- Then work on your economy, capture control posts and build listening posts on them, create 1 or 2 new Tacs squads if necessary or reinforce the ones you already have, this is usually the moment for small SP fights.

( * For the buy a new squad or reinforce an already existing one dielma, think in terms of cost of reinforcing, and what is that you need in that moment, and when its a better idea to purchase another Tactical Space Marine squad instead. A freshly deployed Tactical Space Marine squad costs 190 requisition, takes 26.4 seconds, and has 4/8 units. A single Tactical Space Marine reinforce costs 50 requsiton, and takes 9 seconds; thus 4 reinforcements to bring the squad to 8/8 cost 200 requistion and take 36 seconds. Fully reinforcing 1 Tactical Space Marine squad is slightly the same as buying a second one of 4 men. One squad takes less population cap, but population cap doesn't bother you that much early game, with 2 squads you will have more mobility. It's usually better to get a second one so early on then full reinforce in most matchups & maps in tier1 1v1. * )

- When your economy is stable, build 2 plasma Generators (Gens)

- Then, build armory

- The next part of tier 1 is again improving your economy and fighting for SP. depedning on situation you may need to have a commander unit and at least 3 or 4 reinforced and upgraded Tacs squards, you may either want to build 2 additional generators or get directly to tier 2.

( * Alternatively, after your builders built barracks, you can have them build 1 gen instead of directly having them building LPs on SPs, and after that continue your build as normal. The + of the with gen build is that you can upgrade LPs earlier because you're going to have power, but the - is that for the most maps after you have captured your 1st SP, you'll have to wait few seconds to gather up to 100 requisition before your builders can build LP on SP, thus being a little slower with the LPs building than you would have been without gens. Anyway, they both are both good and general builds. For the most cases, use the no gen build on small or 1vs1 maps and the gen build on large maps * )

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Have your builders build 2 additional generators if you haven't already.

- Build the vehicle building, and as soon as the building is up queue up a vehicle. "Dreadnought" is the most general sugestion I can make, is a powerful melee tank, "Hellfire Dreadnought" is a weaker version of the Dreadnought, don't be fooled by the name. "Predators" are very powerful tanks too.

- Research a vehicle cap upgrade from your HQ, so you can create more than 1 vehicle.

- Build Sacred Artifact, because from there you can create your secondary commander unit

* To increase Space Marines population, research squad/vehicle cap from HQ.

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Barrack

- Have the HQ queue up: Scout, Builder, Scout.
(Ork builders can also be used to tie up or chase away/thwart decaps on points early on).

- When the 1st scout is created, have him capture the closest SP

- When the 2nd builder is created, have him build 1 WAAAGH! banner (or 1 Gen depending on map and matchup, 1 WAAAGH banner is the general choice)

- When the 2nd scout is created, have him cap another SP.

- When the Scouts pairs have captured their first SP, have them capture the next SP

- When the barracks are complete, have 1st builder build Gen and 2nd builder build LP on SP

- Then, have your barraks queue up the secondary commander unit (As Orks, you'll get your Hero when you reach tier 3) and 1 infantry unit (Shoota boys if you need more range, Slugga boys if you need more melee, depending on what you fight against)

- After the 1st builder has build 1 Gen, have him build armory (Pile O'Gunz) and then another Gen.

- Work on your economy, create WAAAGH banners to increase Orks population, capture control posts and build listening posts on them, mass Orks if necessary, the bigger the mob, the better, (don't be afraid to lose more troops than the enemy with Orks, many Orks victories involve losing more troops than the enemy), this is usually the moment for small SP fights, after your economy and army are good, you may either want to build 2 additional generators or get directly to tier 2.

Tier 2 - Pile O'Gunz built

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Have your builders build 2 additional generators if you haven't already.

- Build the vehicle building, and as soon as the building is up queue up a vehicle. "Killa Khan" is the most general sugestion I can make, powerful melee tank. "Looted Tanks" are powerful ranged tanks too, although the un-looted "Leman Russ" Imperial Guards version is better than the Ork version.

* To increase Ork population, build WAAAGH! banners

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Barrack

- Have the HQ queue up: Builder, Scout, Scout (yes the builder first, is important for a quick start)

- When the 2nd builder is created, have him join the builder building the barracks

- If you can make good use of it, research "Fleet of Foot Research" from HQ to make your infantry move faster on the battlefield (pro players consider Eldar worth nothing without "Fleet of Foot"). After it's research, every infantry unit gets a "swich" from where you can activate / deactivate it any time, when active, the squad moves 50% faster but loses 50% accuracy.

- When the 1st scout is created, have him capture the closest SP

- When the 2nd scout is created, have him cap another SP

- When the barracks are complete, have your both builders build 1 Gen together.
(Eldar need power early game more than other races)

- Then, have your barraks queue up Hero and 1 infantry unit (Eldars are a very rock, paper, scissors race; if you need morale damage and stealth build Rangers (they do little phisical damage but high morale damage), if you need melee build Howling Banshee, if you need Ranged damage build Dark Reapers, it depends on what race I play against but I usually start with rangers because I find the stealth and morale damage more useful than the other 2, but that's not necessarly the best build, the other 2 can be useful too, it's situational, the main factors are the map and what you play against.)

- When the Gen is complete, have 1st Builder build a 2nd Gen, and 2nd builder build LP on SP.

( * If at least one SP isn't captured by now, depends on the map, have both builders work on the 2nd Gen, and move the 2nd Builder to the SP when the SP capturing is almost complete so he will start working on LP immediatly * ).

- When the Scouts pairs have captured their first SP, have them capture the next SP and then build LP on them with the builders after they did the things mentione above. (2 Gens already built)

- Then work on your economy, capture control posts and build listening posts on them, create 1 or 2 new squads if necessary or reinforce the ones you already have, make use of Farseer's numerous abilities, this is usually the moment for small SP fights.

- When your economy is stable, build armory (Soul Shrine) because you've built 2 generators already.

- The next part of tier 1 is again improving your economy and fighting for SP. depedning on situation you may need to have a commander unit and at least 3 or 4 reinforced and upgraded squards.

Tier 2 - Soul Shrine built

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Have your builders build 2 additional generators if you haven't already.

- Build the vehicle building, and as soon as the building is up queue up a vehicle. "Falcon" is the most general suggestion I can make, powerful ranged tank, should stay and fire from behind infantry, although it requires some researches "Fire Prism" is the most powerful Eldar tank.

* To increase Eldar population, build Webway Gates

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Barrack

- Have the HQ queue up: Builder, Scout, Scout

- When the 2nd builder is created, have him join the builder building the barracks

- When the 1st scout is created, have him capture the closest SP

- When the 2nd scout is created, have him cap another SP

- When the Scouts pairs have captured their first SP, have them capture the next SP

- When the barracks are complete, have your builders build LP on SP

- Then, have your barraks queue up 1 CSM (Chaos Space Marines, your main infantry) and Hero.

- Then work on your economy, capture control posts and build listening posts on them, create 1 or 2 new CSM squads if necessary or reinforce the ones you already have, this is usually the moment for small SP fights.

- When your economy is stable, build 2 plasma generators

- Then, build armory

- The next part of tier 1 is again improving your economy and fighting for SP. depedning on situation you may need to have a commander unit and at least 3 or 4 reinforced and upgraded CSM squards, you may either want to build 2 additional generators or get directly to tier 2.

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Have your builders build 2 additional generators if you haven't already.

- Build the vehicle building or Sacrificial Circle according to what you need, the vehicle building is generally better for firepower, but horrors from Sacrificial Circle are dedicated anti-vehicle (they also have Possesed squad, powerful melee), so if the enemy has numerous vehicles go Sacrificial Circle otherwise go for the vehicle building first.

- And as soon as the any of the 2 buildings above is up, queue up a new unit depending on what you need: "Horror" squads are anti-vehile, "Possesed" are powerful melee, and when it comes to the vehicles "Chaos Predators" is the most general sugestion I can make, powerful tanks. "Defilers" are powerful too, jack of all trades melee & altilery tanks limited only by the tactical mind of their wielder.

- If you get vehicle building, research a vehicle cap upgrade from your HQ, so you can create more than 1 vehicle.

* To increase Chaos population, research squad/vehicle cap from HQ.

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Barrack.

- Have the HQ queue up: Guardsmen, Guardsmen, Builder, Guardsmen.

- Have your Guardsmen capture SPs as soon as they came out in the field.

- When barracks are complete, queue up Hero (Command Squad) and then have your builder build 1 Gen.

- When the 2nd builder is created, have him help the 1st builder building the Gen.

- When Hero is created, have him reinforced with 1 Priest.

- While you do this, keep capturing SPs with your infantry until you meet with the enemy at probably the middle of the map (unless you're faster and capture more strategic points than him).

- When generator is complete, have your both builders build LPs on SPs.

- When you have captured all SPs that you could capture without a fight, regroup your whole army (3 Guardsmen squads and Hero) and start harassing the enemy taking out their scouts or LPs.

( * You may want to set your Hero on ranged while harassing this way * )

- This is pretty much the situation when you're going to get caught in fights, reinforce your squads if needed. Grenade launchers are very powerful all-purposes weapon upgrades. Don't have 2 squad fight while the 3rd one is capping unless you can take out the enemy in no time, if you are attacked while capping stop capping (unless the capping is complete in 2 seconds) and fight back even if you have 1 squad for capping and 2 others for defense, 3 squads = more firepower = less casualties = more casualties to the enemy. If even with the "capping squad" fighting you can't win get back-up from the other squads or rerteat, it's better to retreat if the alternative is losing your troops there. However, your the early game focus with your army should be on inflicting casualties to the enemy not securing SPs. If you ever need to defend, make use of turrets, Imperial Guards have the second most powerful turrets in the game. And you can garrison broken squads inside buildings.

- As soon as you have build LPs over all SPs you control, you should have your decent economy, have then your builders build 2 more Gens.

( * The order is generally, meaning in most cases: all LPs first > then some critical forward LP2s if necessary & you know you won't lose them > then all Gens > then the rest of LP2s. But it depends on map and matchup. As I mentined in the first section, I can never know your specific situation on the battlefield, if you need power go for generators, if you need requistion go for LP, if besides requistion you need defense too & have enough power to afford it upgrade LPs to LP2s. * )

- When the Gens are complete (and now you have a total of 3 generators), have your builders build armory (Tactica Control).

- When Tactica Control is complete, research "Death before Dishonor" from it (the top left research).

- The next part of tier 1 is again improving your economy (if you haven't already with 3 Gens in total and LP2s) and fighting for SPs. Depedning on situation you may or may not need to have Command Squad & at least 4 or 5 reinforced and upgraded Guards squards.

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- Research requistion upgrade and energy upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Have the HQ queue up 1 - 2 Commissar, attach them to a Guardsmen squad, and spam their "Execution" ability while in combat.

( * You kill 1 guardsmen, but the others that are nearby, not only in the squad where you killed the guardmen, get instant maximum morale & double fire rate for a few seconds * )

- Build the vehicle building, and as soon as the building is up queue up a vehicle. "Santinel" is anti-vehicle, "Hellhound" is anti-infantry, "Chimera" is transport, "Basilisk" is altilerly. "Leman Russ" is a good all-runded tank.

* To increase Imperial Guards infantry population build more barraks, and to increase their vehicle's population build more vehicle building. (+6 infantry/vehicle cap per Infantry/Mechanized Command)

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Barrack

- Have the HQ queue up: Builder, Scout, Scout

- If you can make good use of it, research "Jump Packs Research" from HQ to make your scouts reach SPs faster with jetpacks (pro players do that a lot).

- When the 2nd builder is created, have him join the builder building the barracks

- When the 1st scout is created, have him capture the closest SP

- When the 2nd scout is created, have him cap another SP

- When the Scouts pairs have captured their first SP, have them capture the next SP

- When the barracks are complete, have your both builders build 1 Gen

- Then, have your barraks queue up Hero and 1 FW (Fire Warriors, your main infantry)

- When the generator is complete, have your both builders build LPs on SPs.

- Then work on your economy, capture control posts and build listening posts on them, create 1 or 2 new FW squads if necessary or reinforce the ones you already have, Tau Commander's flamer is a good tier 1 upgrade, make good use of the Tau Commander's "Snare Trap" ability to make enemy units lose 90% of their movement speed for 12 seconds and then shoot them with FW + Hero (but beware, each use costs 35 power), use Vespids from HQ if the enemy has infiltrated units, this is usually the moment for small SP fights.

- When your economy is stable, build 1 more plasma Generators (Gens)

- Then, build armory (Path to Enlightenment)

Tier 2 - Path to Enlightenment built

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Research "Targeting Optics" and then "Feral Leap Research"

- Then, build Kroot Barracks (Kroot Shaping Center)

- The next part of tier 2 is again improving your economy and fighting for SP. depedning on situation you may need to have Tau commander and at least 3 or 4 reinforced and upgraded squards. Kroots are Tau's main melee force, their FW have weaker melee than Imperial Guards, & with "Feral Leap" researched when on Assault Stance (default F6) Kroot Carnivores & Hound Packs will automatically leap at the enemy once in range causing damage and knocking them down.

- Have your builders build 2 additional generators if you haven't already.

- Build the vehicle building, and as soon as the building is up queue up a vehicle.

- When you get to choose between Mont'ka Path or Kauyon Path, generally pick Mont'ka against Space Marines or Imperial Guards, and Kauyon against any other race.

* To increase Tau population simply tech-up. They increase their population when the following buildings are built: Path to Enlightenment +5 infantry cap & +6 vehicle cap; Vehicle Beacon +2 vehicle cap; Mont'ka or Kauyon +5 infantry cap & +6 vehicle cap; Coalition Centre +6 vehicle cap.

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Gen

- Have your HQ queue up: Builder, Builder (sometimes you can queue up even 3 builders on a large map), NW (Necron Warrior, your main infantry), Hero, Builder then spam NW.
Builder>Builder>NW>Hero>Builder>NW>NW (and more NW)

( * If you can make good use of more builders, then queue up Builder > Builder > NW > Hero > Builder > Builder > NW instead. That's how most veteran players play, but they know how to manage them. If you can't take significant advantage (relative to the intial build) of having an early extra builder consider playing only the standard build mentioned above: Builder>Builder>NW>Hero>Builder>NW>NW, until you get more experience with necrons and are able to effectively multi-manage more necron builders. * )

- Have the 2nd builder build another Gen.

( * Don't assign 2 builders on the same gen, but have each builder build 1 gen. Using 2 builders decreases construction time by 33%, more than 2 has no further improvement. However, this is counted per actual builder unit, not per builder squad, meaning that a reinforced Builder Scarab Squad will benefit from the decreased construction time. * )

- Have the 3rd builder capture SP and build LP on it.

( * Since Necron's HQ are also their barracks, and since Necron Warriors have no production cost, try to always have something that the HQ queues up, even if the infantry/vehicle cap is full. * )

- Have your 1st NW either defend the area or harass the enemy, reinforce only if you're attacked.

( * Note that the more Necron Warriors squads you currently have on the field already decreases the production/build speed rate of any new Necron Warriors squads. This doesn't mean you shouldn't build Necron Warriors squads, they are your main infantry and while not free to reinforce they are free to produce, is just so you know why after a while they take longer to queue up. * )

- Have your Hero (Necron Lord) harass the enemy making use of his teleport ability.

( * Necrons are very good at harassment early game * )

- When the 1st and 2nd generators are built, have those 2 builders build 2 other Gens.

- Repeat the process with the 1st and 2nd builder until you have 6 - 7 generators, (On small maps you need troops fast, on large maps, not as fast as on the small ones) then build Core.

( * A good anti-harass necron strategy is to build a turret in the base up to 90%, necrons have the most powerful turrets in the game, and if you're attacked early game complete the construction. Otherwise, delete the construction and enjoy your extra resources when you don't need early turret defense anymore. Besides turret, another means of defense is the LP2's "Wailing Terror" ability. * )

( * The reason you need to spam generators with Necrons is because Necrons use no requistion, they only have Power, the other "resource" above is speed which technically isn't a resource * )

- With the 3rd builder capture the next SP and build LP on them.

- When the 4th builder comes out either have him capture SP and builts LPs too, or in your army to help detect infiltrated enemy units or decap to harass the enemy.

- Then after you built Core with either 1st or 2nd builder, build Gen until you have 7 - 9 and then upgrade HQ.

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- As soon as you reach tier 2, research power upgrade from any Gen.

- Make use of Immortals (powerful anti-vehicle units, but good enough even when the enemy doesn't have vehicles too), Flayed Ones (Melee, imune to morale damage, can be spawned anywhere you have field of view from the ground, including in enemy's ranged troops or near generators), Wraith (Spamming them can wreck Tau or Eldar; they also have "Phase Shift" to become invlunerable, but at the same time unable to attack for 10 seconds)

* To increase the Necron population (as well as raise their speed which discreases their queue up time for everything), capture SP and build LP (called Obelisks) on them. (+20% speed per Obelisk)

Dawn of War Vanilla: Basic Skirmish information and build orders for all 4 original Dawn of War races. It has more depth than this one presenting more than build orders alone (army, tactics, etc).
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169328807
Dawn of War Winter Assault / Dark Crusade / Soulstorm: High in-depth guide to Imperial Guards, from what makes IG so different from other races, to army stats, build orders and game mechanics.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=467088596
Dawn of War Soulstorm: The Soulstorm version of this guide. It's mostly the same, but includes some minor changes and builds for the 2 new Soulstorm races Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=489025517