The two go hand and hand. The fallen pass down the time tested tactics and strategy that has worked for them before. Like survival of the fittest, the tactics that work are passed down, while those that dont die with thier suppporters. After all the time they've had to practice this method, they are left with an array of solid tactics that are proven to work in a veriety of situations. The cabal have likely done the same. My point is, the two races are equally strategicly adept. The centurion lost because he walked into an ambush in an enclosed space, a tactic the fallen have honed to the same extent that the cabal have honed the slow advance on a fortified position.
In other words, to become a captain, you must be strong. To remain a captain, you must be strong and smart.
The Cabal are more of open terrain fighters and the Fallen are closed-space fighters. Simple as that.
Not quite. The cabal are tanks, and the fallen are glass cannons. The former can take a shitload of damage and dish agood bit right back. The latter cant take much, but hits far harder than one would expect. The cabal prefer to face thier enemies openly, while the fallen prefer to shoot and not get shot back.
The biggest key that i'm seeing here, however, is the one thing people haven't been considering. What House is fighting in said conflict? Each House has it's own little piece of personality which marks it's infantry forces. Wolves flood the battlefield with stealth-stabbers intermixed with scorch cannoneers and rely on making the field a mess to navigate. Devils love a damage soaker droid wall intermixed with an ol red army charge backed up with heavy armor. Exiles love to have as much distance between them and their foes as physically possible with long sightlines. And Kings? Ell, they just kill the commander of the opposing force in their sleep rather then fight. As for Cabal divisions? Not as concrete in my mind, but, I believe it went something like Skyburners LOVE flooding the battlefield with infantry, Siege Dancers have shields around every corner, backed up with Legionaries firing over the "walls", Blind Legionaries tend to intersperse their ranks with a considerable amount of Psions, and Dust Giants. . . shet, I can't remember. Sand Eaters? Uh. . ."Bob, stand over here! (Mushy sounding explosion), Tedd, your up! (Sound of high capacity machine gun slugs impacting meat), Terrence your n. . . TERRENCE, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!" Just my two cents.
The Sand Eaters are the hammer of the Cabal, they just throw troops against the enemies until the enemies die (AKA Imperial Guard from Warhammer 40k). Dust Giants are the sword, performing more coordinated strikes against the enemy. The Siege Dancers are the "fortress", digging in at the battlefield and waiting the enemies out. Blind Legion is the scalpel, launching small, but extremely effective and disciplined attacks, most often to take out important targets, like an enemy leader or a Communications Array. As for the Sky Burners, I don't know what they represent in the Cabal army, but I would imagine they drop a sh*tload of jetpack troops on top of the enemy, hence the name "Sky Burners". I guess we will know for sure in TTK, when they will feature more prominently. Then there's the Ice Reapers, who, if I remember correctly, had the Psion Flayers with them. Perhaps they specialize in fielding Psions, as the Psions found in Valus Ta'aurc's boss battle in Cerberus Vae III was from the Ice Reapers?
Perhaps, could be an all-psion task force of sorts. Also, yes, I indeed recall the descriptions of each companies tactical handbook, I'm just stating what I encountered in-game repeatedly for each "faction" within the overarching species.
Indeed, each faction has thier own prefered way of fighting. But, if faced with a foe that thier favored tactic doesn't work against, they would be able to adapt and fall back on other startegies to best thier foe. Granted, said faction might not be as proficient with these counter-tactics than thier favored method, but they would be able to adapt just the same. Thusly, while each house or legion has its own way of fighting, both the factions, and entire race as a whole would be very capable of thinking on thier own, and adapting to counter thier enemies strengths and captitalize on thier own.
I believe a Captain would have the advantage over a Centurion: the Shrapnel Launcher's Solar rounds would tear through the shields of the Cabal, while the Captain's Arc shield would absorb round after round of the Projection Rifle.