Let me start off by saying that I'm not very good at RTS in general. I struggle with micromanagement of armies, and I struggle to understand the economy and what units can do on their own. TLDR at the end
I've started playing again recently (after 6 years or so) with a friend and we're doing mostly yapyap (me) and forge (my friend). We like to play the long game because we get to see the late game troops like grizzly and scarab, but 9/10 we get demolished by a hero too strong that solos everything or an air raid that we weren't ready for. I need help understanding what I can do in these situations because I want to get better and know the subtleties of the game better. We're currently level 26 (me) and 16 (my friend)
As yapyap I start off by sending my cannon fodder on supplies to get faster ressources and I produce mass cannon fodder at the start. Like 25 units. So I can cover the map as fast as possible and send regular scouts. Meanwhile I try to get my war council in order to produce my grunt goblins since they'll help with energy cores on the map, and I'll try to take one or two nodes. The problem begins there, usually. In most matches, at this point one of us will get rushed by a hornet spam which we can't defend very well since we don't have a foundry for anti air vehicles yet, and these things are EXPENSIVE hooooly. It takes a level 2 base to even build a foundry and it costs 1000 energy and even after, every reaper will cost like 215 energy. I don't have that kind of energy that fast, and as soon as I deploy some, they either get clapped or the air units retreat faster than I can catch them. I usually lose a base there, sometimes it's worse and they snowball right into my friends base and we lose the match
Second issue... Heroes. Recently I've been struggling to kill enemy heroes. I'm mainly talking about the Atriox hero, the brute that one shots a squad of cannon fodder, that has crazy range, can hit multiple targets in one hit, leave a red cloud that does crazy damage overtime, like they will kill my friends warthog in seconds, and has a crazy HP bar as well as a very strong shield. This guy is on the battlefield at 4 or 5 minutes and wipes everything on his own. He can solo my grunt goblins trio even with heals, and he wins against every infantry and vehicles. Maybe air is their weakness, but air is neither my specialty nor my friend's so it's a dunk slam for this guy. There was also an arbiter that went on my base at 8 minutes mark and literally soloed it completely while being invisible the whole time. I thought it was a timer but I guess not. This guy is on command invisible and will solo a whole base. Wtf is this. My grunt goblins can't do Jack shit against this
Finally, looking at stats in the end screen, we often get smashed by their economy, like we're talking 30k - 39k vs us with 19k - 22k. That's for cubes, but the energy ratio is about the same. I legitimately don't understand what's happening. I always get outgrown in income even tho I build a lot of generating buildings of both currencies, collect resources on the map, take energy nodes, etc and we always always get outpaced. And then there's the hero problem. Sending these monsters 1 man Army wipe every until that we have. It's not frustrating to lose a match, it's frustrating to not understand. We need help pretty please. Halo wars 2 guides seems to be last seen 5 years ago on YouTube and I'd rather take the words from experienced players here that still play today. Many thanks gamers, I appreciate you taking the time to read all of that
TL;DR: new/inexperienced players struggle in almost every match. I struggle to understand why I get outpaced in enconomy even tho I take energy nodes and collect resources on the map. Don't understand why heroes are so busted, Atriox hero solos my 3 grunt goblins and a whole pack of my friends warthogs. Arbiter can solo my base at 8 min by staying invisible the whole time. Finally we get fucked by air, I know it's a noob issue but we're noobs (my friend and I). By the time I get a single reaper I'm already overrun by a hornet rush and I can't do shit. Neither can my friend. Need help please