Name |
Abilities | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| M-31 | 4/4/0/1/5/43 | Very much the weakest tank available, it is still more powerful than the strongest
Infantry available. Used at the right times, the M-31 can save (and make) you a lot of
money over some of the more expensive units. For example, it can be a strong tool to back
up an assault on a fortified area (it can destroy flags with ease too) with it's ability
to destroy a Fortification in one shot. With the low price of this unit, you are able to
many more of these than any others. M-31's are also quite possibly the ideal Porcupine finisher. While not recommended to start attacking Porcupines, it can be used in a back up force to destroy half Porcupines with very high regularity. This is a great saving over using nothing but Grizzlies or stronger. It also works a bit better than using the AlphaWarrior (although the AlphaWarrior is fully capable of getting the job done too). NOTE: Most of these statements are made on the supposition that you are using a surround bonus of some sort. You do know what a surround bonus is don't you? If not, go to Offence and Defence. |
| Elf | 4/5/0/1/10/50 | The only advantages an Elf has over the M-31 is it's slightly superior Defence and much greater Speed. It does however, cost more, so only use the Elf if you intend to take advantage of it's movement capabilities to support a high speed advance (in situations where you would use an M-31, but for the fact that it couldn't keep up) or to attack targets that an M-31 could not reach. With a bit of luck and practise, a player can make surprise assaults on enemy bases from up to 19 squares, using Transports, Elfs and a Commando. Assuming that you can stack the Elfs into a city or resource, you may well be able to get a 200% surround bonus and destroy a number of Porcupines. You will need to be lucky with your shots to be able to make the first bits of damage on the Porcupines (or use somethin stronger to start the job!). However, on average, at a 200% surround bonus, you can kill one Porcupine per 5 Elfs. (2 to crack an opening and 3 to finish it off). |
| Grizzli | 7/7/2/1/8/70 | The Grizzli is the workhorse tank of Metal Knights. Often, players will use it for
everything from assaulting Fortifications to destroying Porcupines and may even use it to
blow away Transports containing units. It is good because it's abilities lie in the middle
in every way. It has moderate firepower, defense, speed and even a bit of air firepower to
protect against aerial attacks. It is hard to say not to use the Grizzli whenever you can,
because it is just so good. However, there are some situations in which it is not quite as
good as other units. For instance, it is probably overkill to attack Fortifications with it and if you do, chances are the Fortifications will damage your Grizzli in return! It is better to use Tigers (that can't be counter attacked) or a lesser Tank that isn't worth so much to destroy Fortifications. Another instance: Using it in a static or defensive role. The Grizzli can move and is to expensive to use to defend cities and the like. You are much better off using it to actively attack enemy positions instead. A word on the Porcupine destroying abilities of the Grizzli. It is very good, but to get a decent rate of instant kills with Grizzli's (30% at best) you should have a surround bonus of 200% every time if you can get it. This is assuming that you need to kill a lot of porcs. Otherwise, you can drop out some units and expect to kill a Porcupine with every 2 Grizzli's (with a 120% surround bonus). With an instant kill rate of 30% at a 200% surround bonus, you will need units like the M-31 or AlphaWarrior, but this is the cheapest ground unit with which you can really hurt a Porcupine (Tiger is 3$ cheaper for 1 more damage but more expensive overall because it cannot add to the surround bonus). |
| Scorpion | 13/11/2/1/10/104 | The Scorpion is a mighty tank. Capable of destroying any ground or naval unit with one
shot while still being able to stand up to the same, it has high speed for a ground unit
and can damage some air units if it has a good surround bonus. It is, however, expensive.
Only use it when you need it or want to make a point ("I'm going to kick your
ass" is the usual point made). When attacking enemy porcs, especially in fortified cities, the Scorpion is the best thing since sliced bread as it is can destroy them quite easily. It is also a very good choice for taking out Patriots as it has such a high defense that it probably won't be damaged at all. Of course, it is also possible to completely fail to damage a Porcupine or Patriot if you don't have much of a surround bonus, so don't think you can get cocky! Against anything weaker than a Porcupine or Patriot, the Scorpion is probably overkill. Tigers and Grizzli's are probably appropriate targets, but certainly don't bother to use it on Infantry, M-31s or Elfs! NOTE: Due to the high speed of the Scorpion, you can attack bases that are 10 movement away from the reach of Transports if they are placed next to a convenient City or Resource where you can stack your Scorpions (and your Commando that you can use to invade). More than one player with 10 or 20 porcs in his base thought he was safe until a horde of Scorpions arrived on his doorstep! |
| Metal Knight | 18/13/4/1/11/135 | The Metal Knight is the ultimate overkill in the game of Metal Knights, not even
second to the Nuclear in my opinion. This is because $1000 worth of Metal Knights can only
hit 7 enemy units in a turn, whereas the Nuclear can destroy far more (practically
infinite). The units that is does attack however are pretty much toast. If your opponent
has 7 Porcupines in his base, 7 Metal Knights and maybe 3 AlphaWarriors are all you need
to capture it! If however, your opponent has piles of Porcupines to destroy, with a 200%
surround bonus on Metal Knights you will do no less than 216 points of damage with every
single shot. And the maximum you can do is 648 points! As an example, the Metal Knight is $135, over twice as expensive as the Tiger which can often destroy a Porcupine anyway. In no Nuke games where you might need to kill 40 Porcupines in one turn, the difference is obvious. 40 Metal Knights with 8 Hercules at $5857 (assume you can sell the Hercules' as you use them) or 45 Tigers, 15 AlphaWarriors (surround bonus and cleanup) and 12 Hercules (5 for surround bonus, sell the rest after used to save money) for $4404. Gee, it doesn't take a genius to figure out which is cheaper does it? In general, you are better off using a weaker unit than the Metal Knight for Porcupine busting. However, in the field of battle, the Metal Knight is quite useful as it can maul just about anything it comes across on land or sea without no more surround bonus than itself. Also nothing is harder to kill than a Metal Knight! The main usage of Metal Knight is as for wide front battering ram attacks, where you take as much as you can from an enemy and then keep it (usually only on big rich maps where you have a long assault ahead of you)... |
NOTE: All tanks are ground vehicles and can only attack at a range of 1. The Tiger is a missile-carrying jeep, not a tank and so does not appear here.
Name |
Abilities | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Scout | 4/5/0/1/20/50 | There are only a very few uses that I can envisage for the Scout. Unregistered players can load it into Cargo's and use it to attack enemy bases that have been foolishly placed on the coast line. This is just like a player could with Elfs but without having to buy the Universities to get to it and Scouts cost the same amount as Elfs so that is a pretty good deal. Only use this tactic if you need to kill somebody NOW and you don't have anything better or you would be wasting money (the Destroyer does the job a lot better and the University only costs $122. You make that back because you use need much less units). Use it to block enemy expansion. Use it with a cargo to drop it off in front of an enemies base or where you believe they have built a factory on the coast line in very early turns. This is one of the effective Containment techniques (see Crowding and Containment for more). |
| Destroyer | 6/7/0/1/18/61 | Picture the Destroyer as the Grizzli of the sea and you have some idea of it's utility. If fact, the relationship between the abilities of the Destroyer and the Captain is almost exactly the same as that between the Grizzli and the Metal Knight. In short, use it for exactly the same purposes on the water, as you would normally use a Grizzli on the land (yes, it is weaker than a Grizzli, but it is cheaper too so you can have more of them). |
| Shark | 6/8/0/1/15/99 | As far as combat goes, the Shark is far too expensive for what it does. Do not buy Sharks purely for the purpose of waging war. But if you do have them out there already, don't be afraid to use them to confound your enemies by placing them in positions inconvenient for them and making surprise attacks. The best example of this is assaulting an enemy shark with enough of your own to surround and destroy it. Your opponents can't collect wrecks with Sharks they don't have! But remember that if even one unit survives, it can still collect wrecks. |
| Captain | 15/13/4/1/22/124 | The ultimate battleship, the Captain is easily capable of blowing away any other naval unit and in large numbers can empty an opponents base of Porcupines in short order (assuming that they were foolish enough to place it on the coast). Nothing much else to say about tactics with the Captain except to say that it is more effective to block your opponents expansion with one Captain than it is to try the same trick with 2 of any other naval unit as it is super hard to kill and can go further than anything else on land, sea or air. |
NOTE: All Naval units are unable to fire or even move when stranded on dry land! For an exact description of their capabilities, see Movement.
Name |
Abilities | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Predator | 5/3/3/1/18/132 | The Predator is an expensive piece of flying garbage. It is so weak that a Hawkeye can
blow it out of the sky with ease. It is so expensive, and its attack so weak, that you
best find other units to kill things with. It does however, have at least one use. In allied games, any unit can capture an allied city. With a Predator in a Hercules, you can travel 32 squares in one turn! If an ally has set up a chain of factories across his empire at a separation of 25-30 squares, you can travel across his empire (selling the Hercules and Predators when they are down to 1 movement point) in great leaps and bound and attack an enemy on the far side of the map! Naturally, this can be a huge advantage. And there is no drawback, because there is no way that an enemy can follow the chain all the way back to your territory because he cannot duplicate your feat! A Hercules/Commando combo can only go 24 squares in one turn, making it impossible for your enemy to capture more than one factory along the chain in a turn... |
| Apache | 8/6/5/1/12/150 | I have only one good thing to say about the Apache. It is fairly versatile in that it can attack target on land, sea or air. Having said that tho, it costs far too much for what it does do. An Eagle is far more efficient killing ground targets and is of comparable cost. A Falcon is far more efficient destroying air targets and is only $5 more. A Furtif has better abilities in every regard, is totally invisible and only costs 24% more. In short, the Apache is a total waste of money. Never use it unless you have money to burn or want to make a point. |
| Eagle | 14/10/1/1/12/170 | The Eagle only really comes into use on very large maps. It's ultimate use is in conjuction with the Falcon, where it is able to come from a factory far behind enemy lines via Hercules, swoop in and blow away enough of a Patriot in one shot (without taking damage in return because the Patriot does 0 damage to air units!) so that a Falcon can blow away the Hercules that it was protecting. This trick is expensive, but almost foolproof (there may be more than 1 patriot on board or you may not damage the Patriot enough so that it can't defend the Hercules). |
| Falcon | 1/8/14/1/14/155 | The Falcon is the ultimate Air Superiority weapon. Use it to destroy any air target you come across (see here). The only thing that can seriously hurt you in reply is another Falcon or a Furtif. It is, however, highly vulnerable to attack from strong ground units. This is why you should use Eagles or the like to destroy any anti-air ground units that may threaten your Falcons and thus your air superiority. |
| Furtif | 9/10/12/1/15/186 | The Furtif is the ultimate all-round air combat unit. It has high air and ground attack values, has the best defense, flies faster than anything but the Predator, is invisible and very comparable in price to the other air units (against regular opposition, why have a Falcon and an Eagle, when you could have 2 Furtifs for only $47 more? Well. It isn't a specialist like those two, but when you don't know what your going to need to use or you want to trick an opponent into thinking nothing is there and thus running his fully loaded Hercules into your unit, then the Furtif is the go. |
NOTE: All Air Units are totally unrestricted by the terrain over which they pass (because they can fly of course!). Also, when attacked, units must use their Air Attack value to do so, which is usually low or non-existent.