Dawn of War: Cover

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This article is part of the Dawn of War Player's Guide.
From RelicWiki

Cover

One of the unique aspects of Dawn of War compared to other RTS games at the time of its release was the use of special areas of terrain designated as cover. By effectively utilizing cover a squad can fight for far longer than they could otherwise and even win when badly outnumbered.

Cover is applied on a unit by unit basis, not to the entire squad. Part of a squad can be under cover and the remainder can be exposed. A unit is affected by cover by simply standing on the cover terrain.

You can identify cover by simply moving your mouse over the terrain. When hovering over light or heavy cover, collectively known as positive cover, your mouse cursor will have an added blue shield icon with a dashed circle around it. When hovering over negative cover, your mouse cursor will have a cross mark like on a no smoking sign. The tooltips in the bottom right of the screen can also be used to identify which type of cover the mouse cursor is over.

What is Affected

All infantry and vehicles are affected by cover, although the bonuses differ for each unit type. However, there are several exceptions to this rule:

Air units are unaffected by cover.
Tau and Imperial Guard vehicles are affected by cover in the same way as infantry (minus the morale bonus of course). This includes everything from Chimeras to the Baneblade, Drone Squads to the Greater Knarloc, both positive and negative cover.
No Necron units are affected in any way by cover, positive or negative.
Eldar Shuriken Grav Platforms and Brightlance Grav Platforms receive no movement penalties from cover and take 80% ranged damage in heavy cover.
Melee jump troops and all jumping vehicles do not receive movement penalties in cover. This includes Raptor Squads, Assault Marine Squads, Stormboyz, Seraphim Squads, Land Speeders, Falcon Grav Tanks, Vypers, and Fire Prisms.
The Living Saint is affected by cover like a normal infantry unit, not a jump unit.
The Daemon Prince and Bloodthirster are immune to movement speed penalties, and the Bloodthirster also takes 80% ranged damage in light cover and 60% ranged damage in heavy cover.
Scout Marine Squads are immune to movement penalties in positive cover only, they are slowed as normal in negative cover.
Chaos Rhinos and Chaos Predators take 80% ranged damage in heavy cover.
All Dark Eldar units do not receive movement speed penalties in cover.
All Dark Eldar vehicles receive 90% ranged damage in light cover, 75% ranged damage in heavy cover, and 105% ranged damage in negative cover.

Melee

Although not technically cover, melee bonuses function in a similar manner and so are included here for comparison. All infantry, including Necrons, capable of engaging in melee combat receive these bonuses when fighting in melee and the target is also in melee combat. This means infantry do not gain melee bonuses when attacking buildings or non-melee infantry and vehicles. If the attacker is infiltrated but undetected, it will still gain melee bonuses but the target will not until it detects the attacking units and engages them in melee as well. Units also don't count as being in melee combat while performing sync kills, although they are invulnerable. Vehicles do not receive melee bonuses. As with normal cover, there are exceptions to the rule:

Necron Attack Scarabs, Destroyers, Heavy Destroyers, and Lord Destroyers (but not Tomb Spyders) receive melee combat bonuses like infantry.
The Tau Krootox and Greater Knarloc and Dark Eldar Talos likewise receive melee combat bonuses.
The Avatar of Khaine, Bloodthirster, Squiggoth, and Living Saint do not receive melee combat bonuses like the Greater Knarloc, although the Bloodthirster and Daemon Prince gain 5 HP per second while in melee combat (the Daemon Prince has both bonuses).
Tau clones generated by the Ethereal do not receive melee modifiers even if they can engage in melee combat.

Effects of cover

Light Cover

Often found on the edges of jungle forests or in shallow craters.

Ranged damage received: 75% (infantry only)
Maximum movement speed: 90%
Morale regeneration rate: 150% (infantry only)

Heavy Cover

Often found in deep craters.

Ranged damage received: 50% (75% for vehicles)
Maximum movement speed: 75%
Morale regeneration rate: 200% (infantry only)

Negative Cover

Often found in any rivers or pools of water.

Ranged damage received: 110%
Maximum movement speed: 80%

Melee Combat

Ranged damage received: 77.4%
Ranged morale damage received: 10%

Tactics for Using Cover

Stacking Damage Reduction

Besides the already significant damage reduction provided by positive cover, the effects stack with other sources of damage reduction to make the affected units nigh-impervious to ranged attacks. For example, the Smoke Launchers on Space Marine Rhinos reduce range damage for all units under the smoke by 50%. When used on units already under heavy cover, this makes the affected units take only 0.5 * 0.5 = 25% ranged damage. For units under light cover, they take 0.75 * 0.5 = 37.5% ranged damage.

Other sources of ranged damage reduction include Seer Council Conceal (50%), Kustom Forcefield (10%), or the built-in damage reduction of Entrenched Heavy Weapons Teams (50%). Note that there is a maximum of a 90% reduction to ranged and melee damage received, so damage reduction bonuses cannot be stacked indefinitely.

Cover and Melee

Combining cover with melee units is especially effective, resulting in just 58.05% ranged damage in light cover and 38.7% ranged damage in heavy cover. The morale effects also synergize very well, doubling the morale regeneration of the units while simultaneously causing them to take only 10% ranged morale damage.

For this reason, engaging melee troops in heavy cover using a ranged focused army is a recipe for disaster. The ranged troops will be unable to cause any significant physical or morale damage to the melee units. This is particularly true if the melee troops can get into melee with a unit of yours that can likewise engage in melee, allowing them to get their melee cover bonuses. Constructing buildings in or adjacent to positive cover should also be avoided for the same reason. Any melee units attacking those buildings will be provided with strong defenses against your army while they rip apart your structures.

Setting Traps

Cover can also be used to set traps for your enemy. Heavy cover offers a very appealing prize for attacking units to take advantage of. Knowing this, placing mines in heavy cover can present an unexpected surprise for any attackers, especially since mines count as ability attacks rather than physical damage, allowing them to hit for full damage despite the heavy cover. Meanwhile your opponents can only slowly move out of the heavy cover due to the movement speed penalty.

This tactic can be further enhanced with turrets when negative cover is involved. While the enemy troops are forced to move slowly through the negative cover, they are prime targets for turrets as well as mines. The turrets will also do 10% extra damage to the enemy while they are stuck in the negative cover for an extra edge against them.

The Dawn of War Player's Guide

The Dawn of War Player's Guide - Thought of the day: Knowledge is power, guard it well.
Space Marines	Chaos	Eldar	Orks	Imperial Guard	Tau	Necrons	Dark Eldar	Sisters of Battle
Infantry Servitor Scout Marine Squad Space Marine Squad Assault Marine Squad Grey Knights Terminator Squad Assault Terminator Squad Skull Probe Apothecary Force Commander Librarian Chaplain	Infantry Heretic Cultist Squad Chaos Space Marine Squad Raptor Squad Khorne Berzerker Squad Horror Squad Possessed Squad Obliterators Chaos Lord Chaos Sorcerer Daemon Prince Bloodthirster	Infantry Bonesinger Guardian Squad Ranger Squad Howling Banshee Squad Dark Reaper Squad Fire Dragon Squad Warp Spider Squad Harlequin Farseer Seer Council Avatar of Khaine	Infantry Gretchin Slugga Boy Squad Shoota Boy Squad Stormboyz Tankbustaz Nobz Squad Flash Gitz Mega Armoured Nobz Mad Dok Big Mek Warboss	Infantry Techpriest Enginseer Guardsmen Squad Heavy Weapons Team Kasrkin Ogryns Command Squad Commissar Psyker Priest Vindicare Assassin	Infantry Earth Caste Builder XV15 Stealth Team Vespid Stingwing Strain Fire Warrior Team Kroot Carnivores Kroot Shaper Pathfinder Team XV88 Broadside Battlesuit XV8 Crisis Battlesuit Kroot Hound Pack Tau Commander Ethereal Shas'Ui Bodyguard	Infantry Builder Scarabs Necron Warriors Wraith Flayed Ones Immortals Pariahs Necron Lord Essence of the Nightbringer Essence of the Deceiver	Infantry Tortured Slave Mandrake Squad Warrior Squad Hellion Squad Scourge Squad Wych Squad Warp Beast Pack Archon Haemonculus	Infantry Ecclesiarchal Servitor Missionary Battle Sister Squad Seraphim Squad Celestian Squad Death-Cult Assassin Sister Repentia Squad Canoness Avenging Angel Confessor Living Saint
Space Marines	Chaos	Eldar	Orks	Imperial Guard	Tau	Necrons	Dark Eldar	Sisters of Battle
Vehicles Rhino Land Speeder Dreadnought Hellfire Dreadnought Land Speeder Tempest Predator Whirlwind Land Raider	Vehicles Chaos Rhino Defiler Chaos Predator Hell Talon	Vehicles Falcon Grav Tank Vyper Wraithlord Nightwing Shuriken Grav Platform Brightlance Grav Platform Fire Prism	Vehicles Wartrukk Wartrak Killa Kan Fighta-Bomma Looted Tank Squiggoth	Vehicles Chimera Sentinel Hellhound Basilisk Marauder Bomber Leman Russ Baneblade	Vehicles Devilfish Troop Carrier Skyray Missile Gunship Drone Squad Drone Harbinger Barracuda Hammerhead Gunship Krootox Greater Knarloc	Vehicles Tomb Spyder Attack Scarabs Destroyer Heavy Destroyer Lord Destroyer Restored Monolith	Vehicles Reaver Jetbike Raider Talos Raven Ravager Dais of Destruction	Vehicles Rhino Transport Immolator Lightning Fighter Exorcist Penitent Engine
Space Marines	Chaos	Eldar	Orks	Imperial Guard	Tau	Necrons	Dark Eldar	Sisters of Battle
Buildings Stronghold Listening Post Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Chapel-Barracks Armoury Machine Cult Sacred Artifact Orbital Relay Heavy Bolter Turret Mine Field	Buildings Desecrated Stronghold Listening Post Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Chaos Temple Chaos Armoury Sacrificial Circle Machine Pit Daemon Pit Heavy Bolter Turret Mine Field	Buildings Webway Assembly Listening Shrine Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Webway Gate Aspect Portal Soul Shrine Support Portal Support Platform Mine Field	Buildings Settlement Da Listenin' Post Generator Bigga Generator Waaagh! Banner Da Boyz Hut Pile O Gunz! Da Mek Shop Mine Field	Buildings Field Command Listening Post Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Infantry Command Tactica Control Mechanized Command Mars Pattern Command Heavy Bolter Turret Mine Field	Buildings Cadre Headquarters Listening Post Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Tau Barracks Path to Enlightenment Kroot Shaping Center Vehicle Beacon Kauyon Command Post Mont'ka Command Post Coalition Center	Buildings Dormant Monolith Obelisk Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Summoning Core Forbidden Archive Greater Summoning Core Energy Core Gauss Turret	Buildings Kabal Fortress Tower of Loathing Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Slave Chamber Hall of Blood Haemonculus' Laboratory Dark Foundry Wych-Cult Arena Soul Cage	Buildings Ecclesiarchal Chapel Listening Post Plasma Generator Thermo Plasma Generator Adepta Sororitas Convent Pristine Sanctuary Manufactorum Holy Reliquary Shrine of the Living Saint Inferno Turret Purgatus Mine Field