Thoughts on Anu's mutated animals?

[Artek [General]]

So, i had a big left over of mutagen and decided to craft one of those mutated dogs because why not. Precisely, going with my love for heavy units, i went for one with Regenerative capabilities, Basher Head and Slashing Tail.

Unfortunately my experience with fielding this creature was, so far, disasterous.
It didn't prove particularly useful in pandoran nest, but that's fine. I wouldn't expect a vehicle type unit to perform well in those claustraphobic tight corridors where it constantly gets stuck to begin with, but it was a fun experiment.

But then i brought one to haven defense. With a thunderbird +4 people squad as well. And it was HORRIBLE.
First of all, i thought that i would be a real smart cookie by combining the creature with a Frenzy-giving priest. You know: compensate its slowness with frenzy. And also one of the trailers shows the priest commanding the creature, so i thought there had to be some hidden interaction in there. But then it turned out that the creature is immune to frenzy! Even though it has a will stat and CAN, in fact, panic.
So, the priest became a completely worthless unit immediately, because 6 frenzied people are awesome, but 3? What were they going to do?

And then it started getting worse.
The creature had great trouble navigating the New Jericho city street. It couldn't reach a single hostile unit if they were inside a building or... Slightly outside of it. In particular there was this 1 tile "statue" of sorts that blocked the creature and it couldn't destroy it, which caused all my strategy to fall apart because the thing couldnt reach a SIREN which would next turn mind control my soldier.
Then, every pandoran in the vicinity opened fire on it. Some of them had viral weapons. Some 2 turns later, after not landing a single hit because it couldnt reach anyone, the creature started panicing after Virus took away all of its will.
Again, let me remind you. I had a Priest with Frenzy. An ability that prevents panic. But it did NOTHING for the creature. Amazing.
The pandorans also hurt its' head, so it could no longer do bashing or paw attacks but not that it mattered with the creature being stuck in a panic loop...

Outcome: i did manage to salvage the operation, somehow, but just barely and the creature ALMOST died. I mean out of 1500 health it came with it left the mission with like 40. It was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥' miracle it survived. There was nothing i could do for it. Apparently medkits don't work on it either.
I guess it managed one of its roles - took away the damage otherwise the squishy soldiers would receive, but my god... The regeneration was pathetic as well. What was it... 25 HP each turn, something like that? If it was maybe 40 or 50 i could understand, but 25? That's one Mercy Shotgun pellet.

All in all my experience with the creature was absolutely abyssmal. I don't know if i was just unlucky or if it is really that bad.

So far, i think, the greatest issue was its traversing capabilities. Scarab can at least rain down heavy artilery. Armadildo can shoot through windows or holes in the walls and so can poisonous spitting variants. This particular creature has no way of reaching enemies inside the simpliest of building. A small ♥♥♥♥♥♥' shed is all it takes for enemy to escape it.
Imho, it either should be a smaller unit, like 2x2, instead of 3x3, or the basher head should come with ability to ram and destroy walls in order to reach targets because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

So, i have to ask. Did anyone had a better experience with these things? Was i doing something wrong or are they really THAT bad?

[HolyFarglesnot]

All vehicles suck, but the Anu creatures suck the worst. Don't bother. Seriously, even a basically equipped rookie is more useful to you, and Vehicles take the place of multiple operatives.

[Loot Hunter]

Originally posted by Artek General:

So, i have to ask. Did anyone had a better experience with these things? Was i doing something wrong or are they really THAT bad?

Yes, I had better experience. Especially with "agile" types that can jump and thus are far better at traversing.

It's strange that you couldn't use medkits. I remember using them on mutogs to stop the bleeding. Maybe that was changed with some patch. The regeneration is 25 for each leg intact, btw. So it's 100 per turn max.

Personally, I would just keep several dogs at each Phoenix base to defend against direct attacks. The traversal there is less of a problem. This way you don't need divert your planes each time attack happens.

[M(i)ech]

I never tried using Mutogs in combat, but considering that infinite inventory is the only reason I ever use vehicles, I see little reason to even try.

I only use Mutogs to oversee Mutane/Living Crystal/Orichalcum production because I tend to have large surplus of mutagens, so for me Mutogs are useless and made of useless resource: perfect to mitigate costs of ancient materials farming.

[Crypto Gamer]

Mutogs I used like 2 times in total on non defensive missions,All other uses for base defence.

Mutons regain some AP and half of the enemy max hitpoints if they make the killing blow which is nice.For some reason despite being organic they can not be frenzied......and take 3 supply.

Overall if you have surpluss of mutagens,then they are almost"free"and can be useful in base defence.Hope some DLC will give some love to the "Vechiles"

[razvedchiki]

i use them as guards on bases, they only cost mutagens.