When to use Sledgehammers?

[Iso Koala]

They are a decent start unit when I want to pick up a particular specialist and she has Sledgehammers. But I never actually unlock those as a counter to anything, if I dont have those at the beginning. They are avarage, mediocre, but dont seem like an "answer" to anything, so I never have chosen to unlock them later. From same price ground units, Mustangs and Steel Balls just get their jobs done better I feel. Sledgehammers have their spot of "mediocrity", but when the game is so much about hard countering, I really never find use for them, even if they are not bad at the first few rounds.

[ptirodaktill]

I use them with Repair EMP Range and Mech upgrades. A single lvl 2 sledge with repair upgrade can be a nightmare for enemy that lack Phoenix firepower. EMP help a lot to keep enemy shaft in place for Storms action. Also EMP+Range can destroy Arc Carry strategy. Mech make them a decent chaft clearer. Also if you pick improved Sledge cart its hillarious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS_35Kq7Wrg
Stuff to avoid.
1)Heavy armor . Repair is plain out superior all the time.
2)Lifelink . Your entire chunk will die to a single melt or a single ball.
3)Placing them unprotected against phoenixes. You don`t want to loose 1 tank per shot.
4)The firepower upgrade that reduce attack speed is horrible.

[Jerick]

They're not really an answer to anything. They are an average unit but they're flexible. They can tie up enemy units pretty good. Are often strong enough to take more than one sniper shot and have splash for dealing with crowds. They don't excel at anything but they make fantastic meat for your line.

[Pappus]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

I use them with Repair EMP Range and Mech upgrades. A single lvl 2 sledge with repair upgrade can be a nightmare for enemy that lack Phoenix firepower. EMP help a lot to keep enemy shaft in place for Storms action. Also EMP+Range can destroy Arc Carry strategy. Mech make them a decent chaft clearer. Also if you pick improved Sledge cart its hillarious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS_35Kq7Wrg
Stuff to avoid.
1)Heavy armor . Repair is plain out superior all the time.
2)Lifelink . Your entire chunk will die to a single melt or a single ball.
3)Placing them unprotected against phoenixes. You don`t want to loose 1 tank per shot.
4)The firepower upgrade that reduce attack speed is horrible.

Lifelink makes the regeneration twice as effective as it more than doubles the HP and functions as an xp denial form. Either they get the entire stack or they die. Now if the enemy also brings a counter to that like balls then you can answer that too.

[ptirodaktill]

Originally posted by Pappus:

Lifelink makes the regeneration twice as effective as it more than doubles the HP and functions as an xp denial form. Either they get the entire stack or they die. Now if the enemy also brings a counter to that like balls then you can answer that too.

No you can`t. Lifelink will win you 1 round, if you don`t win the game on that round your chances or wining are near zero. You simply cannot recover from loosing so much currency.

[Iso Koala]

Do you ever unlock them, and think "now its the time to use them!" ?
I find them ok when start with them, decent support and meatshield, but when I dont have them at the start, I dont think I have ever unlocked them in middle of the match anymore, since then I either counterplay to enemy, or focus on my press strategy, and in those Sledgehammers dont have strategic position.

[ptirodaktill]

Yes, Sledge is one of the most snowballing unit in the game. If i can feed it with XP or get a enhanced Sledge SPC i always try to deploy some of them. You can distract a Vulcan with them for like forever, you can turn them intro EMP counter. Also unlike balls that can just roll and die Sledge near always kill at least something on the battlefield. A lot of battles ended with lvl 5 siedge sitting in the middle of Storm fire taking here 0 dmg and wining the game by removing enemy dps from equasion.

[Wunderland]

Lifelink will not just win you one round.

Either u take it first (as early as round 2) and force your opponent into counter units which you can predict, and at that points the investment was literally 200 points..

Or If you get it relatively late as second or third upgrade nobody will be able to build any counters to it at that point anymore.

Certainly can be useful.

I almost never go sledgehammer anymore because Marksman or Stormcallers counter them so hard most of the time, and those are in every game. Extremely situational to commit to.

I dont quite understand how to level them anymore because most of the time theres marksman or stormcallers on the other side by Turn 1, if not 2, and you really dont want sledges to tank shots from either.

[puschit]

Recently I buy them more often. They are decent at stopping Crawlers and other chaff and quite tanky (as they should). With the HP regen upgrade and levelled once they are a formidable obstacle for most units and even survive several hits from unlevelled Stormcallers. Their "problem" is that their usefulness is not flashy. But my winrate got better once I bought them as main meatshields. Doesn't work in several occasions, of course.

On lifelink: Once you have enough points so that you don't face complete noobs anymore it is very risky to buy this upgrade. I certainly don't do this anymore, neither for Sledgies nor for balls. Enemy balls and Meltingpoints are just waiting for you to buy it and have a field day. Hackers are also becoming meta which is why I won't invest too much into Sledges/Balls. I'd rather invest those resources in more Sledgies/Balls with tower upgrades (buying them at level 2 & one extra). That way they are harder to counter, you cover a bigger area etc.

But yeah, it is very hard to describe when to buy them. Just experiement a bit - they will rarely disappoint. Just make sure they can level at least once.

[ptirodaktill]

Originally posted by Wunderland82:

Lifelink will not just win you one round.

Either u take it first (as early as round 2) and force your opponent into counter units which you can predict, and at that points the investment was literally 200 points..

Or If you get it relatively late as second or third upgrade nobody will be able to build any counters to it at that point anymore.

Certainly can be useful.

I almost never go sledgehammer anymore because Marksman or Stormcallers counter them so hard most of the time, and those are in every game. Extremely situational to commit to.

I dont quite understand how to level them anymore because most of the time theres marksman or stormcallers on the other side by Turn 1, if not 2, and you really dont want sledges to tank shots from either.

If you take lifelink w/o repair sledge with repair would kill you with minimal support. Balls wil kill you, storms will kill you Phoenixes would kill you Rinoh will kill you. Its not just 200 , its 200 on round 2 that either force you to 2T1 units or one T2 unit w/o unlock. And screw your upgrade progression.
PPl are not stupid, they actualy check what your upgrades are and play accordingly.
Storms only counter white lvl 1 sledges. Once you field the XP juice intro your tanks, and pump in repair upgrade , they no longer care about puny rockets, or ground fire.
You can win your sledges quite a lot of time by placing shielded fang a bit ahead.

[Ekko Tek]

Originally posted by Iso Koala:

They are a decent start unit when I want to pick up a particular specialist and she has Sledgehammers. But I never actually unlock those as a counter to anything, if I dont have those at the beginning. They are avarage, mediocre, but dont seem like an "answer" to anything, so I never have chosen to unlock them later. From same price ground units, Mustangs and Steel Balls just get their jobs done better I feel. Sledgehammers have their spot of "mediocrity", but when the game is so much about hard countering, I really never find use for them, even if they are not bad at the first few rounds.

They start kind of meh but scale amazingly. So yes it's a big help to have them from round 1 so they can gain levels quicker. Like any unit, they need to be well-positioned so they're shooting at the right things. Get a couple levels, field repairs, and then either range or mechanical rage. There's also a couple cards that are worth choosing if they come up - like increased attack range. At that point they're beast mode. They'll need marksman or phoenix backing them up though.

[Antpile]

Lifelink also gives +130% hp. So not only does your firepower last longer because you aren't losing a tank here and there, losing damage for each, but you get more than double the hp.

Sure, if they manage to get a laser focused on it, it gets real bad real fast. But have you ever tried to get steel balls onto the units you want past turn 3 or 4? It isn't a simple as you are making out.

You know if/when you are going to buy lifelink. The enemy doesn't. If your enemy starts building steel balls in the first couple of rounds to counter the possibility, you just don't go lifelink. Steel balls aren't that great vs sledges that don't have lifelink, honestly. Yeah, they can kill them, but they come in groups of 5. Those balls have to start from no damage and spend several seconds on each one of those tanks.

So if you bait him into early steel balls, you just build stuff that counters that. Crawlers and marksmen or pheonix. That sort of stuff. If he doesn't go steel balls by round 3 or 4, you grab lifelink and force him to now try to bring out lvl 1 steel balls against your fleshed out army. Good luck getting them to target the tanks amidst your swarm of crawlers, tanks, and whatever else.

Also, you KNOW if you buy life link that steel balls or melting points are coming. So you have the upper hand. You get to prepare for them by tossing down more stuff that will mess up their day.

[puschit]

That's what I thought a few months ago, too, but now I don't touch lifelink with a ten foot pole anymore. It will win you one round and from then on you lose unless your opponent is dumb. And if he is dumb you win anyway.

[Pappus]

Eitehr way Iso the way to use sledges is early, but that is true for all tanky units since if the enemy damage is already level two or three and you have level one it won't be able to do its job anymore.

It is simply your non-giant tank answer roughly the same as steel ball.

[Bottom Text]

Sledgehammers are an anti-chaff unit that is tanky. Due to having a lower splash radius and much lower rate of fire I would say they are slightly worse than an arclight at killing chaff. However they have twice the single target DPS and four times the health, making them a better generalist unit. Their high health spread across 5 models allows them to shrug off a lot of small arms fire while still serving as a speed bump against the big guns.

They also have some good techs. Mechanical rage helps with their slow speed, slow rate of fire and mesh DPS. Armor piercing bullets gives them 200% extra damage (and a slight fire rate decrease), giving them enough damage to threaten anything smaller than a Vulcan. Extended range is always good. If you can get all three of these you have units that make very short work of the enemy's front line and can very quickly move into range and tear apart the towers and any marksmen and stormcallers.

Some tips for how to use them. Put them in columns not rows. This helps them stagger their shots so they don't all fire at the same chaff unit. It can also cause the enemy snipers to overkill the first sledgehammer before going down the line. Consider alternating columns of sledgehammers and fangs a few tiles apart. Snipers might take out a tank or two and switch to plinking away at the nearest fangs, or arclights, etc might get caught on tanks.

[MzEvilCanadian]

Situationally, I like to use them when my enemy has lots of small units, either fangs, mustangs, or crawlers, as well as arclights. They provide a good buffet between your Ling range squish and your close range chaff. They beat all of the above as well as snipers in a 1 on 1.