Racial Unit Comparison

Hello everyone! This guide is meant to give you an overview of each racial unit in the game and rank them from best to worst. It will include irregulars, basic infantry, pikeman, archers, support, cavalry and the tier 3 unit of each race. I will go over base stats, strenghts, weaknesses and important abilities/traits of each unit and will sometimes offer advice on how to use it in battle the most efficient. I will freely admit that some entries are based on my opinion, so should you (dis)agree or have suggestions on how to improve this guide feel free to post it in the comments. Finally, just because a unit is at the bottom of the list doesn´t mean it´s useless - it just means that I prefer other units over them. If you want to I can also join in on some co-op fun with you guys as well, in which case you can add me.Enjoy! :)

Update: My new class units guide is now available, check here if you are interested: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1463804699
Update #2: I´ve created a guide for AoW Planetfall. If interested, check it here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2057256649

Chapter 1: Irregulars

Irregulars tend to be rather weak and squishy units who fill in a support role for your regular soldiers. They are decent units in the early game and are always available to you thanks to their cheap and quick production. The Initiate and the Hatchling even evolve once they hit gold rank, while other Irregulars gain other useful abilities if you keep them alive long enough.
There, of course, is another much more morbid use of Irregulars as cannon fodder. This usually tends to happen in the mid-game and late-game, where Irregulars with their low HP and weak damage output just can`t compete with stronger tier 3 and tier 4 units. Each Irregular unit “plays” a little bit different, although generally speaking they aren`t particular good against any enemy unit type.
I differentiate between 3 types of Irregulars: Evolving, ranged-focused and melee-focused. I did quite some re-ranking compared to the old version of this guide.

1st: Orc Spearman

Stats: 38 💗
28 👢
8 👅
7 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 10 physical damage (+3 with war cry)
Ranged Attack: 10 physical damage
Unit cost: 40 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Melee-focused
Notable abilities: “Sprint” and “war-cry”.
Notable characteristics: High melee strength and a shield.

The Orc Spearman is an Irregular who focuses more on melee combat, but also has a weak ranged attack when the need arises. Thanks to his shield, high HP and high melee strength (for an Irregular) the Spearman is better than the regular infantry of some other races. Combine these unit traits with “war-cry” and “sprint” and you have yourself a surprisingly dangerous Irregular who can easily kill regular units - other Irregulars get obliterated in a fair 1v1 fight against a Spearman.
Since they have a powerful melee attack, decent survivability and a great versatility they are the best Tier 1 Irregular unit in the game. Since they have a decent ranged attack, they can still be used as most of the other Irregulars on this list if the need arises, which further adds to the versatility of the unit. I originally forgot to mention that the Spearman has “war-cry” (thanks to Iguana-on-a-stick).

2nd: Frostling Ice Scraper

Stats: 30 💗
28 👢
9 👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 3 physical and 5 frost damage
Ranged Attack: 3 physical and 5 frost damage
Unit cost: 40 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Ranged-focused
Notable abilities: Can freeze enemies solid with his ranged attack.
Notable characteristics: Very vulnerable to most damage types.

The Frostling Ice Scraper is a suprisingly dangerous opponent on the battlefield thanks to his ability to freeze enemies solid with his ranged attack. That`s far better than the Harpoon Thrower’s “immobilized” effect and it checks against frost resistance, meaning it’s very effective against Draconians and Tigrans.
If you are lucky enough, the Ice Scraper allows you to start fights by freezing some of the enemy units solid, effectively removing them from the fight for a couple turns. Since you can further increase your odds by chilling your enemies (lowering their frost protection), the Ice Scraper becomes more and more useful the more you think about it. He is defiantly better than the Harpoon Thrower, which is why I recommend to replace them with Ice Scrapers.

3rd: Halfling Adventurer

Stats: 35 💗
28 👢
8 👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: 7 physical damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 7 physical damage
Unit cost: 45 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Ranged-focused
Notable abilities: “Animal slayer” and “monster slayer”.
Notable characteristics: Ranged attack that hits up to 3 times.

Personally, I am not a big fan of the Halflings, which you might notice the more you read through this guide. I do, however, like the Halfling Adventurer as his ranged attack is actually pretty darn powerful compared to other Irregulars. Reason being that it hits up to 3 times and deals increased damage to animals and monsters due to the Adventurers “slayer”-abilities. Due to their low price and easy production you can use them as cheap archers, if the Jester is a tad bit too expensive and too vulnerable for your taste.
As their ranged attack is pretty good for an Irregular and their slayer abilities come in handy against an archdruid, its worth keeping Adventurers even in some late-game matches. If you make use of a lot of Adventurers you should pick the 2nd Halfling race governance upgrade, which increases their ranged damage by 1 - a lot considering that it can trigger up to three times. They get sprint at gold, which makes it easier to get experienced Adventurers out of bad situations.

4th: High Elf Initiate

Stats: 33 💗
28 👢
8👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 4 physical and 4 shock damage
Ranged Attack: 12 shock damage
Unit cost: 45 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Evolving
Notable abilities: They evolve at gold rank.
Notable characteristics: Shock damage and shock protection.


Personally fond of the High Elves, I naturally spent quite a lot of time with Initiates as well. Their shock damage doesn´t counter anything but dreadnought machines, but it´s also resisted only by a handful of units. This makes the ranged attack useful against pretty much any enemy unit, if you keep the Initiate out of harms way - they are ill-suited for taking direct hits from enemy units. Their best (and only real) ability is to evolve into a Storm Sister at gold rank - which rewards careful players who don´t use their Irregulars as cannon fodder.
Thanks to their ability to evolve you can get your hands on quite a lot of Storm Sisters pretty early on in the game and since their Shock damage is so versatile, they are useful in about any situation imaginable - well except one. That being shock resistant foes like Wisps, Phantasm Warriors or Horned Gods. If you plan ahead, this becomes less of an issue though.

5th Draconian Hatchling

Stats: 33 💗
28 👢
9👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 6 Physical and 1 fire damage
Ranged Attack: 11 fire damage, can be used while engaged
Unit cost: 45 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Evolving
Notable abilities: They evolve at gold rank.
Notable characteristics: Can use ranged attack when engaged.


Quite similar to the Initiate when it comes to their role in a battle. Their fire damage is resisted by some foes, but since the Hatchling can use this attack even when they are engaged, they are a bit better suited for direct combat than the Initiate is. Unlike them, the Hatchling can evolve into a multitude of different units when reaching gold rank. If you are lucky you can get your hands on Flyers and Elders, else you at least get a Crusher or Charger out of it.
Their form of evolving is a bit too random for my taste, which is why they get the spot behind the Initiate. They make up for that with their increased combat efficiency, although it`s still dangerous to put a hatchling in harm’s way like that - they are still an Irregular, after all.

6th: Tigran Cheetah

Stats: 35 💗
32 👢
9👅
7 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 9 physical damage
Pounce: 13 damage, enters guard after use
Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Melee-focused
Notable abilities: “Pounce” and “inflict bleeding wounds”.
Notable characteristics: Lack of a ranged attack.


The Cheetah is the only Irregular unit of the game that doesn`t have a ranged attack. They instead come with “pounce”, which is a powerful one-hit attack that the enemy cannot retaliate against and which leaves the pouncing unit on defense. Since Tigrans come with additional mobility, the Cheetah can make the most use of “pounce” by attacking archers or support units that are far away from any supporting melee unit. Otherwise, "pounce" can be used to turn around an enemy unit without many risks or to reach otherwise inaccessible enemy units.
The lack of a ranged attack reduces the overall usefulness of the Cheetah in the traditional use of Irregulars. Instead, they should be used as a flanking unit, to harass melee-weak enemies or to pick off badly wounded enemies. At gold rank they receive the “sprint” ability, which further increases their usefulness in a balanced army. Since their “pounce” is such a good way to annoy or outright kill enemy archers, heroes and support units they also make for a good throwaway unit for the more reckless players among us.
Do keep in mind that Cheetahs are slightly more expensive than other tier 1 Irregulars - so if you are playing warlord, you should use “raise militia” for a cheaper and quicker access to them.

7th: Goblin Untouchable

Stats: 30 💗
28 👢
8👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 5 physical and 3 poison damage
Ranged Attack: 11 poison damage, can be used while engaged
Unit Cost: 40 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Ranged-focused
Notable abilities: “Disgusting Stench” and “Tunneling”.
Notable characteristics: Ranged Attack can be used when engaged.

While not necessarily bad, the Untouchable isn`t a very good Irregular unit. The poison damage is a hard counter against sorcerer summons and high elves, but completely useless against machines or the undead. The Untouchable is squishy even for an Irregular, but makes up for it by being very cheap and quick to produce and come with the ability to be used as a miner. In case you don`t know, each time you dig through a dirt wall in the underground you receive a small amount of gold - that can stack up pretty nicely if you got enough miners digging through the underground. Since the Untouchable is cheap himself, you can get your investment back as quick as the turn they are produced.
Although their “tunneling” is really useful and their “disgusting stench” slightly reduced the enemy's morale fighting them in melee combat, they still feel quite lackluster in a direct fight. That is especially true, since the goblins have many other racial units that deal much more poison damage than the little Untouchable ever could. They do get a lot better in terms of versatility if you pick the 1st military governance upgrade, which gives them “projectile resistance” and “sprint”.

8th: Human Civic Guard

Stats: 35 💗
28 👢
9👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 8 physical damage
Ranged Attack: 11 physical damage
Unit cost: 40 gold (2 upkeep)
Sub-type: Ranged focused.
Notable abilities: “Volunteer”.
Notable characteristics: Weak in both melee and ranged combat.


Easily the worst irregular unit of all races, if you don´t pick the 1st military governance upgrade that gives them the “throw net” ability. I defiantly recommend to do just that, since a discount to settlers just doesn`t matter and the “throw net” can be used to overwhelm even very powerful enemies if you outnumber them with Civic Guards.
With “throw net” actually pretty decent - without it utterly useless apart from being used as cannon fodder. Since both their ranged and melee attack are weak, they are totally unsuited for direct combat with regular troops.

9th: Dwarf Prospector

Stats: 33 💗
28 👢
9👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 8 physical damage
Ranged Attack: 11 physical damage
Unit cost: 44 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Useless Ranged focused
Notable abilities: “Tunneling”
Notable characteristics: Weak in both melee and ranged combat.


They seem like a worse version of the Untouchable. The reason why they are below the Civic Guard is that they can`t be improved by any race governance upgrade - they remain useless in a fight no matter how long you play a match. The literal only useful thing for prospectors to do is to mine dirt cavern walls in the underground for gold - that`s their one redeeming quality.
Only produce these guys if you lack a good gold income. They can be used as cannon fodder too or as tunnel “guards”.

Chapter 2: Basic infantry

Basic infantry (or just infantry) is the backbone of most regular armies in the game - at least for classes that focus on those regular armies. When I talk about basic infantry, I mean the tier 1 infantry each race gets, with the exception of the Tigran Prowler (as he is technically a tier 2 unit). General speaking, you can´t really go wrong with infantry since their “jack of all trades” style allows you to use them in a variety of roles.
Infantry doesn´t possess any kind of ranged attack, but are pretty good melee fighters in return. Compared to irregulars you will quickly notice that basic infantry has significant better stats, thereby better survivability than them. Certain units are better serving as a “living wall” to protect your ranged units, while others excel with their offensive capabilities. For that reason, I will classify basic infantry into two sub-categories: Defensive infantry and offensive infantry.

1st: Dwarf Axeman

Stats: 46 💗
28 👢
11👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 11 physical damage
Defensive Strike: 14 physical damage, leaves unit in guard mode
Unit cost: 55 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Defensive infantry
Notable abilities: “Defensive strike”.
Notable characteristics: High defensive stats.

Surprisingly for some people not the Prowler, who will be next on this list. I think the Axeman is the one who deserves the first spot, since he is just so tanky for a tier 1 infantry unit and also pretty cheap for a dwarven unit as well. The excellent stats of the Axeman are what make him such a fantastic unit and he can be further improved if you choose the 2nd military race governance upgrade that gives them and Deepguards +2 melee strength.
Then there is their very useful ability of defensive strike, which leaves the Axeman in guard mode after he attacked the enemy once - they will still retaliate though. Due to his shield and good defense stats the Axeman makes short work of archers and many weaker infantry units, but make him vulnerable to units with overwhelm. He is cheap, he is easy to get and a great combat unit - which is why they get the 1st spot on the list. If you play Theocrat you may want to replace them with Crusaders

2nd: Tigran Prowler

Stats: 52 💗
32 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 13 physical damage (more if enemy is bleeding or incapacitated)
Unit Cost: 70 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-type: Offensive infantry
Notable abilities: “Martial arts”, “improved wall climbing” and “bloodthirsty”.
Notable characteristics: Great mobility but rather weak defense stats.

Here come the Prowlers! Like already mentioned, actually a tier 2 unit due to the amount of special abilities they have. Their best ability being “martial arts” which greatly reduces retaliation damage and damage from attacks of opportunity. That means the Prowler is best used as an offensive unit to either kill off some enemies or to get rid of their action points without much risk. “Improved wall climbing” comes in real handy in early siege battles, but since I rather focus on siege engines and ranged units this ability rarely comes into play later in a match.
“Bloodthirsty”, on the other hand, can come in real handy if you pair Prowlers with Cheetahs and Shredders, as both of them can cause bleeding. Keep in mind though: The Prowler has pretty low defensive stats, especially for his price. Using him defensively isn´t a good idea if you have the choice. You also need to have a war hall in your city to produce the Prowler - it´s not enough to have the barracks. Class replacements for melee units (like Berserkers, Assassins, Crusaders and Musketeers) could replace the Prowler if you aren`t a big fan of them.

3rd: Orc Greatsword

Stats: 50 💗
28 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 13 physical damage (+3 with war cry)
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Offensive infantry
Notable abilities: “War-cry” and “overwhelm”.
Notable characteristics: Powerful melee attack at cost of survivability.



An Orc Greatsword - being in the right place at the right time - can be an absolutely devastating enemy to stare down. Their powerful melee attack combined with “overwhelm” and “war-cry” allow the Greatsword to obliterate most other infantry units and pikeman with ease, while also threatening many tier 3 units. The greatest flaw of the Greatsword is defiantly the lack of a shield and his vulnerability to magic attacks.
Since he is so damm squishy with his low resistance and lack of a shield the Greatsword can be picked off pretty easily by archers and support units - which is a severe disadvantage they have compared with the Axeman. Useful if you managed to get them into the enemy’s face - but easy pickings if left open on the field.
When playing warlord, you should replace the Greatsword with Berserkers as quick as you can, as they fulfill the exact same role but do it better. Orc Crusaders are probably the most powerful tier 2 infantry unit in the game with “tireless”, a shield and a high defense. The Orc Musketeer is another great option, as the ranged weakness of Orcs doesn`t do much when firing a musket.

4th: Human Longswordsman

Stats: 45 💗
28 👢
11👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 11 physical damage
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Offensive infantry
Notable abilities: “Overwhelm” and gold-rank “guard breaker”.
Notable characteristics: More balanced version of the Orc Greatsword.



The Human Longswordsman is best compared to an Orc Greatsword, since they are based around the same idea of a squishy, hard-hitting unit. They lack a shield, but have quite a good defense which makes them stand up to archers a little bit better than the Orc Greatsword. Their “overwhelm” makes them a great counter against pikeman and shielded infantry, but he lacks the high burst damage of the Greatsword to seriously threaten Tier 3 units in a fair fight.
In short: The Longswordsman is a slightly weaker version of the Orc Greatswords in terms of melee strength, but has slightly more defense in return. Once reaching gold rank, the Longswordsman gains the very useful “guard breaker” ability, at which point he gets actually more useful than the Orc Greatsword. I myself prefer the Human Halberdier over the Longswordsman. Berserkers, Monster Hunters, Crusaders and Musketeers can completely replace your Longswordsman, if you so choose.

5th: Draconian Crusher

Stats: 46 💗
28 👢
9👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Defensive infantry
Notable abilities: “Overwhelm” and gold-rank “tireless”.
Notable characteristics: Squishy infantry unit, that has a lot of potential.


The Crusher doesn`t get that much love from many players, although they are actually not such a crappy infantry unit if you think about it. They start out pretty weak and squishy, but get a lot better if you give them the 2nd military governance upgrade. This upgrade gives them “regrowth” along with Chargers. On gold rank the Crusher also unlocks “tireless”, which in combination with "regrowth" makes him a pretty good unit to tank hits for your other units, which is why I actually classified them as defensive infantry.
I prefer the Charger over the Crusher any day and since they also get regrowth from the same upgrade you don´t miss out on too many things. You can and should replace Crushers with stronger class units like Berserkers, Monster Hunters, Crusaders and Musketeers.

6th: Frostling Raider

Stats: 47 💗
32 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 6 physical damage and 5 frost damage
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Offensive infantry
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “backstab”.
Notable characteristics: Deals frost damage and has a high mobility.


One might not expect the fire weakness of the Frostling Raider to be noteworthy - but it really is. Reason being that most support units in the game deal at least some fire damage, while many other high tier units make use of fire damage as well. What makes the Raider better than the lower entries on this list is his high mobility in combination with a shield. This allows him to quickly close the gap between him and archers.
He is decent enough in melee combat and deals additional damage to Draconians and Tigrans thanks to their frost damage. Since they gain “backstab” at gold rank, the Raider is the reason why I classify him as offensive infantry. His shield does allow you to use them as a “living wall” as well, which is a unique trait I love about the Raider. Monster Hunters, Crusaders and Musketeers could replace him, although I consider him good enough to serve in your armies regardless.

7th: High Elf Swordsman

Stats: 43 💗
28 👢
11👅
9 ✟
Melee attack: (3x) 10 physical damage
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Defensive infantry
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “first strike”.
Notable characteristics: A good support-slaying unit and “living wall” for your archers.

This actually was the unit I had in mind when I talked about being a “living wall” - since that is the main purpose for High Elf Swordsman. Use them to block incoming enemy units and pick them off with your Longbowmen and Storm Sisters, who should be placed right behind the Swordsman. Since he has a shield and a high resistance for being a High Elf the Swordsman does an excellent job at hunting down enemy support units.
The best trait of the Swordsman (apart from being a “living wall”) is his gold-rank “first strike”, which in combination with his shield makes him a prefect counter to pikeman, apart from the Human Halberdier that has “overwhelm”. On that note, try to keep the Swordsman away from ANY unit with overwhelm - that wouldn´t end well for him. You can always replace them with stronger class counterparts like Monster Hunters, Musketeers or Crusaders.

8th: Halfling Nightwatch

Stats: 44 💗
28 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 10 physical damage
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Defensive infantry
Notable abilities: “Urban concealment”.
Notable characteristics: Weak and squishy infantry unit that usually relies on luck.

While not useless, the Halfling Nightwatch comes pretty darn close to it. They have a pretty weak melee attack, average defense and resistance and a shield. Thanks to the shield they make for a somewhat decent “living wall” for your Adventurers and Jesters to shoot over - although not a very good one. The 1st military governance upgrade gives the Nightwatch +1 defense and +2 melee strength, which pretty much is a must have if you want to bother with them for any extended period of time.
While their shield makes them somewhat decent at tanking hits for your ranged units, it also makes them vulnerable to units with “overwhelm”. Foes like the Longswordsman or Greatsword annihilate Halfling Nightwatches unless they are incredibly lucky. This reliance on lucky is what bothers me the most about the halflings as a whole - not just the Nightwatch. In any event, switch them out for a stronger entry on this list or class replacements.

9th: Goblin Marauder

Stats: 40 💗
28 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 10 physical damage
Unit Cost: 40 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Defensive infantry
Notable abilities: None.
Notable characteristics: Very Cheap, but has weak stats.


The Marauder is the worst infantry unit in the game by far, I even prefer the halfling Nightwatch over them any day. The Marauder has very weak stats ranging from melee strength to HP, Defense and Resistance - they also lack any kind of special ability apart from having a shield. This shield in combination with the very cheap and quick production makes the Marauder to a decent throwaway unit, which can tank hits for your more valuable units like Swarm Darters or Blight Doctors.
As soon as you can get your hands on any other infantry unit, I suggest you take the opportunity. Same goes with class replacements (you know the deal: Berserkers, Monster Hunters, Crusaders and Musketeers). Apart from using them as a distraction there is not a whole lot these little buggers can do aside from overrunning the enemy with sheer numbers.

Chapter 3: Pikemen

Pikeman units are a specialized variant of your base infantry, which come equipped with pikes of various shapes and variants depending on race. All pikeman units share their base abilities being “polearm” and “first strike”. “Polearm” allows pikeman units to deal more damage to cavalry and flying units and receive less damage from these units. Apart from giving them a significant advantage when defending, “first strike" also neutralizes any charge bonus an enemy unit can get on the pikeman, except that unit has “first strike” as well.
Pikeman fare decently against some infantry units, but are generally weaker in a direct 1v1 fight with them. A hard counter to most pikemen are archers and support units, since pikemen lack a shield to reduce the incoming damage with. Pikemen won`t do you much good in siege battles either, since they can`t climb walls. Due to their “first strike”, it´s often better to let them attack you instead of attacking them first. There aren´t any sub-types for pikemen I could think of.

1st: Tigran Sun Guard

Stats: 48 💗
28 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 10 physical damage
Unit Cost: 60 gold (4 upkeep)
Notable abilities: “Guard Breaker” and “Sunshield”.
Notable characteristics: Very agile and tanky tigran unit. The only racial pikeman that has a shield.



By far my most favorite racial pikeman due to their incredible versatility and sturdiness. Their "sunshield" not only protects the Sun Guard from arrows, but also from fire attacks - since fire magic is very common this is another huge advantage for him. When it comes to sturdiness you won´t find anything better for the Tigrans than their Sun Guards, apart from certain class units of course. And thanks to their “guard breaker” ability you can use them in a very offensive way as well.
Their melee strength isn`t the best, but apart from that they are a fantastic unit to have in all your armies regardless of class units (apart from Crusaders and Phalanxes). At gold rank the Sun Guard gets “projectile reflection”, which renders enemy archers utterly useless against the Sun Guard. If you have to face these guys wait until they attacked or use units with “overwhelm” (the Human Halberdier comes to mind).

2nd: Goblin Butcher

Stats: 55 💗
28 👢
11👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 13 physical damage
Unit Cost: 81 gold (8 upkeep)
Notable abilities: “Life Steal”.
Notable characteristics: Very sturdy for a goblin unit.



The Butcher might be a bit expensive for a goblin unit, but they are defiantly worth the investment if you prefer quality over quantity. Unlike other goblins the Butcher doesn´t suffer from low HP, he has a decent defense and “life steal”. All of this combined makes the Butcher a fantastic mid-game/late-game replacement for your Marauders if you don´t have class units that do the job better.
Like all pikemen they have “first strike”, which makes them perfectly suited to serve as a “living wall” for your Swarm Darters to shoot over - they can stop even tier 3 cavalry without any issues. The only thing Marauders have that the Butcher doesn´t is a shield, but this can be neglected since the Butcher is just so much tankier and stronger in head-to-head combat. Try to keep him away from archers though - leave that to your Warg Riders.

3rd: Frostling Royal Guard

Stats: 55 💗
28 👢
9👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 7 physical and 5 frost damage
Unit Cost: 75 gold, 10 mana (8 upkeep)
Notable abilities: “Pledge of Protection” and gold-rank “tireless”.
Notable characteristics: Pikeman that can “share pain” with certain units.


The Royal Guard seems to be a rather squishy pikeman at first glance, since his base version only comes with 9 defense - that with the usual frostling fire weakness. The Royal Guard does get +2 defense if you use “pledge of protection”, which can only be used on female frostling units and heroes. This allows him to protect your squishier units with much greater efficiency - even ranged attacks used on the protected unit will hurt the Royal Guard instead. His gold-rank “tireless” further helps when he is on defense.
In order to make most of this amazing pikeman you defiantly need to pick the 2nd military governance upgrade, since that gives the Royal Guard +1 defense and “life steal” - that makes the Royal Guard arguably better than the Butcher. If you don´t care too much about the well-being of the Royal Guard or have a lot of healing units you can use your Ice Queens, White Witches and Heroes pretty aggressive.
The only real flaw I have with the Royal Guard is that his defense is significantly lower than that of other pikeman if you don´t use “pledge of protection” on someone. Since the Butcher is much more uncomplicated to use, has no fire weakness and doesn´t require a military governance upgrade to become great I consider them superior to the Royal Guard, although only slightly. If you know how to use Royal Guards, they can become much better than the Butcher.

4th: Orc Impaler

Stats: 50 💗
28 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage (+3 with war cry)
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Notable abilities: “War-cry”.
Notable characteristics: High damage for a low price.



While lacking any unit specific special abilities, the Orc Impaler has the highest damage output of all tier 1 pikeman units. Not only that, but he can actually still use “war-cry” to further increase their damage to the point where they can threaten many tier 3 units without any issues. Thanks to his high melee damage and “first strike” they actually make for a great replacement for your Greatswords, since they don´t have a shield and aren´t that much stronger than the Impaler.
Due to the low price, easy use and incredible high damage output for a tier 1 unit the Impaler usually makes up a great portion of my early-game and mid-game armies - at least if I can´t replace them with better class-units (e.g. Berserkers, Crusaders and Musketeers).

5th: Human Halberdier

Stats: 45 💗
28 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 11 physical damage
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Notable abilities: “Overwhelm”.
Notable characteristics: Fantastic counter against other pikemen and shielded infantry.


Originally, I preferred the Draconian Charger over the Halberdier for his “lesser flying”. After many additional hours of game-experience I gotta say though, that the Halberdier with his higher defense and “overwhelm” comes in handy very often and doesn´t require a military governance upgrade to become viable in the first place. Thanks to his “overwhelm” and “first strike” the Halberdier makes for a fantastic counter against other pikeman or shielded infantry, while he is still pretty effective against cavalry and flying units.
This versatility is what makes him so great, although his overall damage output just can´t compete with the Impaler, which is why he is lower on the list than he is. Halberdiers have the potential to completely replace your Longswordsman if you so choose, else you can never go wrong with the usual class replacements.

6th: Draconian Charger

Stats: 46 💗
30 👢
9👅
8 ✟
Melee attack: (3x) 11 physical damage
Unit Cost: 60 gold (4 upkeep)
Notable abilities: “Lesser flying”.
Notable characteristics: Highly mobile but very squishy pikeman.


Like most Draconian units very squishy and needs to be used carefully if used against anything other than enemy cavalry or flying units. Their “lesser flying” is quite a useful ability, although they don´t bring the necessary sturdiness to use this ability for much more than flanking. In order to help with their survivability, you need to give them the 2nd Draconian military upgrade which gives Chargers and Crushers “regrowth”.
Only then, the Charger becomes viable in my opinion. You are still better off using them for flanking or on defense, since their low defense makes them pretty weak in a head-to-head fight against most pikemen or basic infantry. If you picked the “regrowth” upgrade for them you should keep them in your armies regardless of stronger alternatives - if you didn´t, then I recommend to change them out with class units or (late-game) Flyers.

7th: High Elf Union Guard

Stats: 43 💗
28 👢
10👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 9 physical and 2 shock damage
Unit Cost: 60 gold (4 upkeep)
Notable abilities: None.
Notable characteristics: Pikeman that deals a bit of shock damage.



Not a very strong pikeman in terms of melee damage and quite overpriced as well compared with the higher entries on this list. What makes the Union Guard better than the last two entries on this list is the shock damage they deal. Reason being that shock damage is resisted only by a handful of units, while it allows the Union Guard to take down undead units much easier than other pikemen. Their higher resistance helps them survive attacks from support units.
So while being a tad bit expensive and weak compared to better pikemen, they are actually really useful when dealing with early-game undead attacks. They still get the job done against cavalry, but can´t hold off stronger melee units in a 1v1 fight. I prefer to use Swordsmen instead, since their shield offers them much better damage protection and your main damage source as High Elf will be your ranged units anyways.

8th: Dwarf Deepguard

Stats: 46 💗
28 👢
11👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 11 physical damage
Unit Cost: 55 gold (4 upkeep)
Notable abilities: None.
Notable characteristics: Very sturdy pikeman without any special abilities.

Not a big fan of the Deepguard, as his lack of any useful ability makes him pretty boring to use. With the Orc Impaler you can at least use “war-cry” and watch the mayhem - the Deepguard on the other hand is just yet another sturdy dwarf unit. His high defense and resistance make him sturdier against archers but only by a little bit.
Despite his boring gameplay, the Deepguard defiantly gets the job done against cavalry and flying units, but apart from that he isn´t much better than the Axeman. The Axeman has a shield and “defensive strike”, both very useful abilities who up his survival chance by quite a bit.
I guess what I am saying is that, in the end, the Deepguard just feels rather boring and pointless to use, since the Axeman is just such a fantastic infantry unit who can take care of cavalry and flying units as well. You can´t go completely wrong by having a Deepguard in your early game stacks, for the mid-game and late-game I recommend to switch them out with stronger pikemen or class units.

9th: Halfling Famer

Stats: 45 💗
28 👢
9👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 10 physical damage
Unit Cost: 50 gold (4 upkeep)
Notable abilities: “Throw Chicken”.
Notable characteristics: Being useless Squishy pikeman unsuited for direct combat.

“One shall not talk about the halfling farmer” - frustrated AoW 3 player in 2018.
After recently playing through the halfling campaign I guess the Farmer isn´t as utterly useless as I originally thought. Still, the fact that he doesn´t get the job done against stronger cavalry units or pretty much any other melee unit is quite troubling. One of his redeeming qualities is a quite decent, one-time useable “throw chicken”, which ignores line-of-sight penalties and can reduce the movement of the affected unit as well.
The only time a Farmer is somewhat decent is when supported by a variety of different units along with the farmer`s happiness (thereby luck) being pretty high. If both is working out in your favor they make for a decent “living wall” for your Jesters and Adventurers to shoot over. I would still rather go with Nightwatches, as their shield makes them an overall better unit. If you can get your hands on better pikemen or class units you should defiantly kick your farmers out of your (new) armies.

Chapter 4: Archers

Archers are your most basic ranged unit, which usually carries some sort of bow that deals physical damage, although the exact details and special abilities differ depending on the race. Most archers are able to inflict a big amount of damage in a short period of time, but are also very vulnerable to damage themselves. Most of them are weak in melee combat, so keep them away from dedicated melee units or your archer losses will be extreme.
Archers are a crucial part of your armies, especially in the early-game and mid-game. Archers are generally good against any enemy unit in range, especially against those that have no shield. Archers usually aren´t very effective against units that have a high defense, but deal a huge amount of damage against those that do not. Always make sure that your archers are safe from enemy melee units, cavalry and flying units in particular are great counters to archers. I differentiate between two types of archers: Multi-fire and single-fire.

1st: High Elf Longbowman

Stats: 32 💗
28 👢
8 👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 6 physical damage
Ranged attack: (3x) 9 physical damage
Unit Cost: 80 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Multi-fire
Notable abilities: None.
Notable characteristics: Deals full damage regardless of range.

The high elves are generally known for their high-quality ranged units, while their melee units are kinda lacking. The High Elf Longbowman is the perfect example of this military doctrine, as his ranged damage output is among the highest possible in the early game. What makes the Longbowman so great is that he does not suffer from any ranged penalty, which means he deals full damage regardless of distance to the target. This is especially useful in open field battles or when defending from a wall, but useful even when being the attacker in a siege battle. At gold rank Longbowmen unlock “projectile resistance”, which helps a lot in archer battles.
He still suffers from line-of-sight penalties … until you get far enough in the game to unlock the 5th military governance upgrade! That upgrade removes this penalty, allowing you much more freedom when positioning your archers - if the enemy is in range, the Longbowman (or Storm Sister, who also profit from the same upgrade) deal full damage. You could also pick the 1st military governance upgrade that gives your Longbowmen +1 ranged strength if you have a shooting grounds in the city before you produce them. That’s not really crucial, but useful if you plan on building a lot of archers, which is a good strategy when playing the high elves.
The biggest rival in terms of being the best archer is the Goblin Swarm Darter, who has no line-of-sight AND no ranged penalty right from the start. However, a large portion of the damage the Swarm Darter does is poison, which is resisted by a lot of units - many are even immune to it! That’s the main reason I changed my mind and now prefer the High Elf Longbowman over the Swarm Darter. But it´s still a very close one!
There is no real point in changing them out for another racial archer, when it comes to class replacements though, the Mounted Archers, Bards and Hunters each are direct upgrades of the Longbowman, but usually more expensive than them.

2nd: Goblin Swarm Darter

Stats: 27 💗
28 👢
7👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 5 physical and 3 poison damage
Ranged attack: (3x) 3 physical and 5 poison damage, no penalties
Unit Cost: 63 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Multi-fire
Notable abilities: None.
Notable characteristics: Doesn´t suffer from ranged or line-of-sight penalties.

These little buggers are just amazing, although they aren´t on top of this list anymore since the recent update of the guide. Swarm Darters deal a mix of physical and poison damage, which usually is pretty effective - but a huge disadvantage when fighting blight immune enemies. Thanks to their unique ability you can be very creative when placing them in tactical combat - which you defiantly should, as the Swarm Darter is squishy even for an archer.
You can increase the Swarm Darters HP by picking the 2nd military governance upgrade, which is useful if you plan on using them in large quantities. A good strategy when playing the goblins is to bring a Blight Doctor for every 2-1 Swarm Darters, since the Blight Doctors “weakening” opens up the path of using poison against otherwise immune enemies (like the undead or machines). Another fun strategy with Swarm Darters is to give them the buff of a Frostling White Witch, which allows them to deal some ridiculous amounts of damage. Something you should consider if you got access to the tech of both races.
Unless you play the high elves, there is no real point in getting rid of Swarm Darters since their unique abilities make them useful in many situations. The reliance on poison damage is the biggest flaw of the Swarm Darter, but apart from that he is an amazing archer and should be used in most of your armies. Class replacements for archers aren´t that good for the goblins, as none of them have the same ranged properties of the Swarm Darter.

3rd: Tigran Shredder

Stats: 35 💗
28 👢
8👅
7 ✟
Melee attack: (3x) 7 physical damage
Ranged attack: (3x) 8 physical damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Multi-fire
Notable abilities: “Inflict bleeding wounds” and gold-rank “hurl net”.
Notable characteristics: No line-of-sight penalty on ranged attack..

The lack of a line-of-sight penalty doesn´t sound like much, but given the right circumstances it´s worth a fortune! When attacking in a siege, for example, the Shredder deals full damage on enemies on the wall or behind it - if he got close enough. It´s also a neat ability to have in an open field battle, as the enemy archers, support units and heroes aren´t safe behind their melee units.
Shredders also have “inflict bleeding wounds” which opens up a nice synergy between Shredders and Prowlers (certain Tigran class units have “bloodthirsty” as well!). At gold rank the Shredder unlocks the “hurl net” ability that can be used from a short distance from the target instead of being right next to them (that would be “throw net”).
I wouldn´t kick Shredders out of your armies completely, unless you can get your hands on Longbowmen or Swarm Darters. Shredders are a cheap and effective unit in siege battles especially - keep that in mind if you can´t afford more expensive siege engines. Regarding class replacements, the hunter offers a direct upgrade from the Shredder as he keeps his “throw blades”. While the Mounted Archers don´t have “throw blades” they can move incredible far in tactical combat thanks to “athletics” - so they are worth considering.

4th: Draconian Flamer

Stats: 34 💗
28 👢
7👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 5 physical and 2 fire damage
Ranged Attack: (AoE) 4 physical and 7 fire damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Single-fire
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “inflict scorching heat”
Notable characteristics: Archer with AoE attack and immune to fire damage.

Flamers are another amazing archer, arguably better than the Shredder in some situations - but worse than the Longbowman or Swarm Darter. Thanks to his AoE attack, he is able to damage several enemies at once if aimed right - this can backfire, if your own units are caught in the attack. They are also very useful when finishing off weak enemies while still doing damage to another one.
Their fire immunity helps a lot when fighting support units, since many of them make use of fire magic. That also allows you to use “fire bomb” on top of your other flamers without dealing much damage to them - if they ever get in trouble. A somewhat hidden stat of the “fire bomb” is that it actually ignores ranged and line-of-sight penalties - that makes the Flamer useful in siege battles as well.
The one serious flaw the Flamer has is his weak concentrated damage - if the enemy is smart enough not to group his units in a tight formation that AoE effect isn´t very useful. Even when the enemy does have a close formation - if his units are on defense a single “fire bomb” will hardly even damage the formation. Still a very fun and unique unit - also one of the few non-dreadnought units that have access to an AoE attack. Regarding replacements I would only go for Draconian Apprentices, who have “fire bomb” as well. Mounted Archers and Hunters use a traditional bow instead of the “fire bomb”.

5th: Halfling Jester

Stats: 32 💗
28 👢
8👅
8 ✟
Melee attack: (3x) 5 physical damage
Ranged attack: 10 physical and 5 fire damage, AoE "dazzle" effect
Unit Cost: 75 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Single-fire
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “Explosive Death”.
Notable characteristics: Ranged attack with AoE effect, that can dazzle enemies and panic animals.

They seem like a weaker version of the Flamer. While their ranged attack only deals damage to one unit, it has the ability to dazzle (not to be confused with dazed) enemies in a 1-hex radius around the target location. Dazzled enemies deal no retaliation damage and cannot do attacks of opportunity, which helps halfling melee units to do their job without risking their own safety in the process - if you managed to kill the enemy unit that is.
As a nice added bonus “shoot fireworks” has the ability to panic animals, which can come in real handy when fighting roaming stacks of animals or archdruids - even the big snakes and spiders aren´t completely immune to this effect! The biggest flaw of the Jester is his low HP which in combination with the halfling physical weakness make him the squishiest archer in the game. That requires you to carefully position your Jesters in a battle, else you risk losing them really quick. They are also easy prey for cheap combat spells like “magic fist” or “root spears”.
Regarding replacement units, I recommend going for Monster Hunters when playing warlord, as they come with “shoot fireworks” as well. Hunters unfortunately use a traditional bow, which makes them less useful for the halflings than the Jester is without being sturdier. If you prefer more raw damage you can replace Jesters with other entries on this list.

6th: Human Archer

Stats: 35 💗
28 👢
9👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 6 physical damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 8 physical damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Multi-fire
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “blessed arrows”.
Notable characteristics: Weaker version of the Longbowman.

This unit is really boring, even for a human unit. Apart from his gold-rank “blessed arrows” that deal some spirit damage he has no special abilities at all. They often seem like a weaker version of the Longbowman, that has a long-range penalty. The Human archer does have reliability speaking for him, since he can tank damage better than most of the higher entries on this list. Due to the lack of special abilities I rarely use Human Archers after the early-game phase, since the Human Priest is just such a great support unit that has healing.
“Blessed arrows” comes in handy against the undead, but isn´t very useful against anything else really and since it´s unlocked at gold rank it takes quite a lot of time to get it in the first place. You can´t really go wrong with Human Archers, though you should defiantly replace them with either of the top 3 entries on this list. Regarding class-replacements, both the Hunter and the Mounted Archer are straight upgrades from the Archer. Sticking with Human Priests instead is a good strategy as well.

7th: Dwarf Crossbowman

Stats: 35 💗
28 👢
9👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 6 physical damage
Ranged Attack: 16 physical damage
Unit Cost: 72 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Single-fire
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “armor piercing”.
Notable characteristics: Powerful, single shot attack.

“We are now entering the realm of crappy archers, please hold on to your seats.” - yet another comment from a frustrated AoW 3 player.
There really is a big gap regarding quality between the Human Archer and the Dwarf Crossbowman. Often there is this crossbow vs bow argument going on in the back of my head: If you got 2 or 3 action points left a bow is better, else the crossbow is. Since you don´t have that choice with the Crossbowman you should use them like an irregular unit and try to flank the enemies as often as possible.
The lack of a traditional bow severely reduces the overall usefulness of the Crossbowman, as he is unable to deal a lot of concentrated damage while also lacking an AoE effect. I strongly advise you to change out your Crossbowmen with Monster Hunters and Bards when playing Rogue and Warlord, as both come equipped with a heavy crossbow. I personally prefer to use Forge Priests instead, since they give you a magical damage type while being able to attack 3 times.

8th: Orc Razorbow

Stats: 37 💗
28 👢
8👅
7 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 9 physical damage (+3 with war cry)
Ranged Attack: (3x) 6 physical damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Multi-fire
Notable abilities: “War-cry” and gold-rank “first strike”.
Notable characteristics: Weak ranged attack but powerful in melee combat.

These guys aren´t as utterly useless as I used to think. The big flaw with the Razorbow is that his ranged attack is ridiculously weak in comparison with other archers, although the “inflict bleeding wounds” can become useful occasionally. The Razorbow’s strength is that his melee attack is very powerful for an archer, especially if you pick the 2nd military governance upgrade that gives them +3 melee damage and +5 HP. While the alternative economical upgrade is very attractive as well, the military upgrade effectively turns the Razorbow into a melee unit that has a ranged attack. With additional HP and “first strike” on gold rank they can become pretty independent from your dedicated melee units.
Regarding replacements, you want to go for better archers that have a multi-fire attack as well. Other than that, Orc Priests offer a solid alternative to the Razorbow. At the end of the day the usefulness of the Razorbow depends whether or not you are willing to sacrifice a one-time discount for each of your orc cities. If you are not willing to, the Orc Razorbow is a pretty useless unit.

9th: Frostling Harpoon Thrower

Stats: 34 💗
28 👢
8👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 2 physical and 5 frost damage
Ranged Attack: 7 physical and 7 frost damage, might immobilize enemies
Unit Cost: 70 gold (4 upkeep)
Sub-type: Single-fire
Notable abilities: None.
Notable characteristics: Ranged attack that can immobilize enemies.

Urgh I hate these guys so much and after playing a lot of orcs recently I gotta say they are even worse than the Razorbow. The Harpoon Thrower is overpriced, luck based and has a weak ranged attack that can immobilize enemies. But WHY would you want to go with a unit that can immobilize an enemy if your Ice Scraper has almost the same chance of freezing an enemy solid, turning them completely useless - an immobilized ranged unit can still hurt you!
Defiantly replace these useless fools with Ice Scrapers - they are SO much better than Harpoon Throwers. The freezing chance is almost as high as the immobilizing chance, while it is much more useful and the freezing chance can be increased by chilling a unit first. Regarding replacements you can with go any other archer - even Razorbows. Monster Hunters come with “throw harpoon”, so if you play warlord and want to have a unit with that ability just go with them instead.

Chapter 5: Support

Support units are probably the most diverse unit type in the entire game, since each of them plays a bit different, has different synergies with different units and support your troops in a variety of ways. There are the support units that can heal your troops or buff them in other ways, while a couple others focus entirely on dealing magical damage.
Support units counter units that are too resistant to physical damage or even weak to the damage type the support unit deals. On the other hand, units that do resist the magical damage of the support unit or have a high resistance in general aren´t very impressed with the damage output of the support unit. Like the name suggest, you are best off not mindlessly stacking support units into stacks of six, as most of them strongly rely on melee units to keep the enemies away from them. Similar to archers, support units are a useful asset in sieges whether you attack or defend a city wall. As already hinted, I will differentiate between two kinds of support units: Damage-focused and support-focused.

1st: High Elf Storm Sister

Stats: 36 💗
28 👢
9👅
12 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 8 physical damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 9 shock damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold, 20 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-type: Damage-focused
Notable abilities: “Stunning Touch”, gold-rank “Inflict stun”.
Notable characteristics: Can stun enemies, rendering them useless.


In all honesty: Anyone who has played this game for any extended period of time knows how awesome Storm Sisters can get if you level them up to gold. At gold rank they receive the “inflict stun” ability, allowing them to stun enemies with their ranged and melee attacks. That´s useful in any situation imaginable and only a hand full of enemies completely resist this effect. Storm Sisters are still useful even when not on gold-rank though: Their shock damage is resisted only by very few enemies (like sorcerer summons) while their “stunning touch” even allows you to stun an enemy when the Storm Sister isn´t gold ranked yet.
No matter what race you play, the Storm Sister is always a great addition to your armies if you can get your hands on them - and unless you fight a sorcerer. I strongly advise you to pick the 3rd and 5th military governance upgrade to give ALL your Storm Sisters and Longbowmen the “seeker” ability (ignore both ranged and line-of-sight penalties).
You should keep them unless you have a good reason not to. “Inflict Stun” is such a useful ability in just about any situation. If you happen to be a sorcerer yourself, you might want to change your Storm Sisters out for better Apprentices, who receive “inflict stun” with an empire upgrade.

2nd: Human Priest

Stats: 36 💗
28 👢
9👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 8 physical damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 8 spirit damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold, 20 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-type: Support-focused
Notable abilities: “Bestow iron heart”, gold-rank “inflict daze”
Notable characteristics: Weak damage output, but a strong healing ability.

Regarding damage output, the Human Priest isn´t the best unit to go with. What makes him outstanding are his two trademark abilities: The first one being “bestow Iron heart”, that heals 15 HP and gives a unit strong will (useful if you are up against Dread Reapers). His second ability is his gold-rank “inflict daze”, that renders an enemy unit useless similar to “inflict stun” (difference being that dazed units can still defend and move).
I wouldn´t replace Human Priests unless you come across a lot of enemies that have “strong will” on most of their units. After a small chat with Iguana-on-a-stick I gotta say that “inflict daze”, given the right circumstances, is even better than “inflict stun” of the Storm Sister. The “inflict daze” of the Human Priest lasts for two turns and can actually be stacked with the sorcerer’s empire upgrade that gives your support units “inflict stun”. That means you can have a unit that can both stun and daze your enemies while still offering a good healing ability!

3rd: Tigran Mystic

Stats: 36 💗
28 👢
9👅
10 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 3 physical, 3 fire and 3 spirit damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 4 spirit and 4 fire damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold, 30 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-type: Combat-focused
Notable abilities: “Were-panther”, “projectile resistance” and gold-rank “phase”.
Notable characteristics: Very versatile and independent support unit.

Tigran Mystics become amazing once you level them up enough. Mystics don´t have any real way of buffing allies apart from using “break control” to remove spirit debuffs. They instead focus on combat and unlike most other support units Mystics do pretty well both in melee and ranged combat. Her ranged attack deals a mix of fire and spirit damage, which is decent. She comes with “projectile resistance”, which helps a lot against archers.
Her true strength, especially compared to other support units, lies in melee combat. She deals a good amount of magical damage in melee combat and is able to transform herself into a dedicated melee unit thanks to the “were panther” ability. This ability transforms the Mystic into a Were Panther, healing some HP in the process. In her panther form she is able to use “pounce” on enemy units, allowing for many tactical uses for mystics.
They could: 1. Become a melee focused unit to protect vulnerable units, 2. Switch their damage type to physical, 3. Fend off enemies if she is ganged up on, 4. Heal some damage (at the end of a battle) or 5. Make tactical use of “pounce” (e.g. getting into an archer’s face or turning a unit around).
Gold-rank Mystics can also use “phase” to teleport into a better firing position or into safety, if you overextended with them a bit. A funny strategy I like to use with gold-rank Mystics is to use “phase” to get right in front of an archer, hero or support unit, use “were panther” and put her on defense. If I was unable to teleport right into the enemy’s face I can still use “pounce” to do so. When playing theocrat or necromancer, you can use gold-rank Mystics as teleporting healers as well.
The incredible versatility and independence from the rest of your army is what makes the Mystic such an awesome unit. Unless you play theocrat or necromancer the Mystic doesn´t have anything in terms of unit buffs, but if you are looking for a unit with many different tactical uses that can hold it´s own against most tier 1 and tier 2 units the Mystic is for you! If you don´t like this “Magic archer” approach you can always go with a support unit that has healing or other buffs.

4th: Frostling White Witch

Stats: 35 💗
28 👢
9👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 4 fire and 4 frost damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 4 fire and 4 frost damage
Unit cost: 70 gold, 20 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Support-focused
Notable abilities: “Grant frozen flames” and gold-rank “freezing touch”.
Notable characteristics: Rather squishy, but has an amazing unit buff.

White Witches are an interesting support unit. Damage-wise, the White Witch is about as powerful as a Mystic, although they are much weaker in melee combat than them. Instead of spirit damage she deals frost damage in melee and ranged combat. The reason why I put her so high on the list is her “grant frozen flames” ability, that adds +2 fire and +2 frost damage to any kind of attack and also bestows a unit with 80% fire protection - that is a fantastic buff for any frostling unit, while the damage aspect is fantastic for heroes or archers (pretty ridiculous with Swarm Darters and Longbowmen).
In the long run, the “inflict stun” and “inflict dazed” of the Storm Sister and Human Priest is superior to this one-time buff and regarding versatility the White Witch just can´t compete with a Mystic. With that said, the unique ability to buff someone’s ranged damage like that is amazing, which is why there is no real point in changing out White Witches especially if you play frostlings yourself.

5th: Orc Priest

Stats: 41 💗
28 👢
9👅
10 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 9 physical damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 3 poison, 3 spirit and 3 fire damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold, 20 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Combat-focused
Notable abilities: “Throw curse”.
Notable characteristics: Deals the most damage in ranged combat.


Like most orc units, the Orc Priest is a pretty easy-to-use unit. Of all tier 2 support units the Orc Priests deals by far the most ranged damage, that in 3 channels of damage: Fire, spirit and poison. That means the Orc Priest, pretty similar to fairies, can be effectively used against a wide variety of enemies out there. Their “throw curse” is a very handy tool, since it either lowers an enemy’s morale, defense and resistance or reduces their movement for a turn.
Although he deals more ranged damage and is easier to use, he isn´t as versatile and independent as the Mystic and since he is a combat-focused support unit he lacks any real way of buffing your other soldiers. Regarding replacements, it´s the same story as with Mystics: If you rather want to have a more support-focused unit change them out, else you really shouldn´t. Another neat thing is that the Orc Priest makes for a great replacement for your Razorbows if you don´t bother using them.

6th: Draconian Elder

Stats: 36 💗
28 👢
9👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 4 physical and 4 fire damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 8 fire damage
Unit Cost: 70 gold and 20 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Combat-focused
Notable abilities: “Dragon ancestry” and gold-rank “fire aura”.
Notable characteristics: Able to deal high amounts of concentrated fire damage.

Although he does have an ability that can buff his fellow soldiers, I still see them as a combat-focused support unit due to the amount of fire damage they are able to deal. Their buff “dragon ancestry” bestows a draconian unit with more fire damage, 40% fire protection and high morale - this includes the Elder himself! If you use this buff on the Elder himself, he is able to absolutely roast ANYTHING that is weak to fire damage - although he deals a lot of damage to any unit that isn´t resistant to fire damage.
Some other abilities of the Elder are “lava walking”, which does exactly what the name says, and “fire aura”, which the Elder gets at gold rank. “Fire aura” deals some fire damage to any unit that attacks the Elder in melee combat - that allows the Elder to put up quite a fight before going down (another reason he is a combat-focused support unit). At silver rank the Elder also gets "inflict immolation", which is a nice synergy with units that can convert enemies (Iguana-on-a-stick pointed that out).
You can go ahead and switch the Elder out for something else if you got fire magic covered and want a more support-focused unit. When it comes to concentrated fire damage there is nothing better than a Draconian Elder - even the famous Flame Tanks and Fire Dragons can´t compete in that regard.

7th: Dwarf Forge Priest

Stats: 36 💗
28 👢
11👅
12 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 8 physical damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 8 fire damage
Unit cost: 83 gold and 22 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Support-focused
Notable abilities: “Guardian Flame”.
Notable characteristics: Very sturdy for a support unit.

The Forge Priest is a neat support unit, although he isn´t great. The best thing about him is his “guardian flame” ability, that has a pretty similar effect like the “dragon ancestry” of the Elder. It restores 10 HP to the target friendly unit, adds +2 fire damage to it`s melee attack and gives them 40% fire protection. In terms of ranged units, the Forge Priest is the best unit you get with dwarves, unless you have access to good ranged class units. At gold rank the Forge Priest gets "inflict immolation", which lowers an enemy's defense, resistance and morale - perfect in combination with units that can convert enemies (credit to Iguana-on-a-stick).
While being pretty useful for the dwarves and pretty tanky for a support unit he isn´t really outstanding in any regard, which is why he is so low on the list. Every bit of healing helps I suppose, but 10 HP just isn´t that much and the buffs and combat abilities of other support units outshine the mediocracy of the Forge Priest. Feel free to replace them with a better support unit if you can get your hands on them.
On a side-note: The Forge Priest is an armored unit, which makes him vulnerable to units with "armor piercing" but also allows him to profit from certain treasure sites and empire upgrades (thanks to Lampros for pointing that out).

8th: Halfling Brew Brother

Stats: 35 💗
28 👢
9👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 11 physical damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage, very short range
Unit Cost: 70 gold and 20 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Support-focused
Notable abilities: “Nourishing meal” and gold-rank “minor bard skills”.
Notable characteristics: Great healing ability but has a terrible ranged attack.

Another halfling unit I´ve become a lot fonder of after playing through the halfling campaign, as I realized how useful his “nourishing meal” buff really is. Nourishing meal doesn´t just heal 15 HP, but it also adds another 15 max HP to a unit along with +100 morale. You heard that right: Given the right circumstances, the Brew Brother (or archdruid heroes with that ability) can give a wounded unit up to 30 more HP.
The bad thing about the Brew Brother is his weak combat capabilities. Not only does he lack a magical ranged attack (which is replaced by a physical one), but it also has a very short range of 3 tiles. This creates a problem for halfling players, since they don´t have a good way to counter physical resistant enemies in the early game apart from certain hero types. For some reason the Brew Brother deals a significant amount of melee damage, which seems a bit out of place.
Due to his terrible combat capabilities and physical weakness very unsuited for a direct fight, even though his melee damage is pretty good for a halfling unit. Best used as a dedicated healer (especially with necromancers and theocrats) which is something the Brew brother does great. Instead of healing an injured unit you could also just buff a unit`s HP right at the start of a battle - which helps negating the physical weakness of halflings.

9th: Goblin Blight Doctor

Stats: 31 💗
28 👢
9👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 4 physical and 4 poison damage
Ranged Attack: (3x) 8 poison damage
Unit Cost: 63 gold and 18 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Combat-focused
Notable abilities: “Weakening” and several poison debuffs as he levels up.
Notable characteristics: Allows for several nice synergies for the goblins, but squishy.

Not a big fan of this support unit. The Blight Doctor has nice a synergy with other units that deal poison damage since he can use “weakening” on enemy units, causing them to gain a huge amount of poison weakness (also opens the path to use poison against machines or the undead). Still - the range of this ability is too short in my opinion, since I prefer to just deal damage right now instead of using a turn to weaken the enemy before. He can get useful in some situations - I just don´t like them so much as they can be killed in one attack by almost any unit.
If you like the synergy with other goblin units keep them. Especially combined with Swarm Darters in siege battles the "weakening" can come in real handy - still other support units are just better than the Blight Doctor. You might want to stick with mentioned Swarm Darters if you don´t like Blight Doctors and can´t build other support units.

Chapter 6: Cavalry

Cavalry is an important asset in open-field battles, while being less important in siege battles since none of them can climb walls. Compared to your foot soldiers, cavalry has significantly more movement and come with the “charge” ability. “Charge” triggers when a unit crossed 3 hexes before attacking an enemy - keep that in mind, you can artificially build up a charge in many situations! I differentiate between yet again two different sub-categories for this unit branch: 1. Direct combat and 2. Flanking. Each cavalry can do both, of course - some of them are just more suited for flanking and not as good in direct combat.

1st: Orc Black Knight

Stats: 60 💗
36 👢
12👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 13 physical damage (+3 with war cry)
Unit Cost: 100 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Direct Combat
Notable abilities: “War-cry” and gold-rank “overwhelm”.
Notable characteristics: Deals more damage to cavalry and flying units.


In terms of raw damage, the best tier 2 cavalry you can get your hands on. While being vulnerable to magical damage (due to low resistance) they can take quite a lot of punishment from physical attacks and deal a huge amount of damage themselves. They are the only tier 2 cavalry unit that has the “polearm” ability, which means he does even more damage to cavalry and flying units than he already does on an infantry unit. Similar to Impalers, they can easily tear apart most tier 3 units when flanking and using “war-cry”.
The Black Knight gets even better at gold rank, where he unlocks the “overwhelm” ability. Shielded infantry will take a similar ridiculous amount of damage like cavalry does due to “polearm”, while “overwhelm” helps a little bit with pikemen. Being strong, versatile and cost-efficient makes the Black Knight to my favorite combat cavalry. If the enemy has a lot of support units you might want to go with another cavalry unit instead.

2nd: Frostling Mammoth Rider

Stats: 80 💗
32 👢
9👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 15 physical damage
Unit Cost: 110 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Direct Combat
Notable abilities: “Devastating charge” and gold-rank “killing momentum”.
Notable characteristics: Cavalry unit which’s “charge” attack runs over low tier units like a truck.

The Mammoth Rider is a massive sized cavalry unit with a lot of HP, making it a very tanky tier 2 unit. Their “devastating charge” makes their first attack incredible powerful, allowing you to instantly kill many tier 1 units in a frontal hit - when flanking, they can kill off tier 3 units with that ability. On gold the Mammoth Rider gets “killing momentum”, which allows you to leave them on defense after obliterating an enemy unit.
Mammoth Riders do have some disadvantages though: Their high production cost with 110 gold (roughly 94 gold when picking the 3rd military governance upgrade) and their low defense and resistance. Low resistance in combination with fire weakness makes them very vulnerable to many support units, while his low defense makes them quite bad at defending your ranged units. All of this combined makes the Mammoth Rider awesome in open field battles and since they also come with “wall crushing” they are useful in sieges as well. Since he is so vulnerable to fire damage, you should focus on other cavalry units if you face a lot of support units.

3rd: High Elf Unicorn Rider

Stats: 55 💗
36 👢
11👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage
Unit Cost: 90 gold and 10 mana (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Flanking
Notable abilities: “Phase”.
Notable characteristics: Cavalry with good resistance, useful for ambushing.

Defiantly my go-to cavalry unit when I am facing a lot of support units, since their high resistance allows them to tank magical damage pretty easily. The trademark ability of the Unicorn Rider is “phase” which allows him to easily get in front of an archer, hero or support unit. I like to compare the Unicorn Rider with the Black Knight, since the two seem like polar opposites. What the Unicorn Rider has in resistance and extra mobility they lack in melee damage - which is where the Black Knight comes into play.
The only time I would change out Unicorn Riders is when you want a cavalry unit with more brute strength, in which case Mammoth Riders and Black Knights are the unit you should go for. Other than that, you can´t really go wrong with Unicorn Riders, since their “phase” (which can be upgraded to a 1-turn cooldown if you pick the 2nd military race governance upgrade!) allows them to be used in ways other cavalry units couldn´t even dream of. One of the few cavalry units that’s really useful in a siege battle.

4th: Human Cavalry

Stats: 55 💗
36 👢
12👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage
Unit Cost: 90 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Direct combat
Notable abilities: “Evolve”.
Notable characteristics: Can evolve into a Knight.

Regarding stats the Human Cavalry is a Unicorn Rider with less resistance and without “phase”, while having slightly more defense. This high defense is pretty important for the cavalry, since you want to attack and kill enemies with them to rank up and evolve into Knights. Evolving into a Knight really is the outstanding ability of the Human Cavalry, so you should focus leveling them up similar to your heroes and units like the Storm Sister. For that reason, I highly recommend that you take the 2nd military governance upgrade that gives human cavalry a 50% experience boost.
That is unless you play warlord, since his/her “global assault” spell makes evolving cavalry into knights incredible easy. When it comes to the actual fighting, the Human Cavalry can be used both in direct combat and for flanking, as he has the necessary defense to hold his own against most tier 1 and tier 2 units. If you get your hands on Human Cavalry you should keep them in your armies to evolve them into Knights - if you don´t want to bother with that or need a more specialized cavalry unit switch them out with the higher entries on this list.

5th: Goblin Warg Rider

Stats: 50 💗
36 👢
11👅
10 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage
Unit Cost: 81 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Direct combat
Notable abilities: “Overwhelm” and gold-rank “first strike”.
Notable characteristics: Cheap and pretty powerful goblin melee unit.

The Warg Rider is a surprisingly good cavalry unit, since his HP isn´t that much lower than that of his racial counterparts. His damage output is the 3rd highest on this list, since the Warg Rider comes with “overwhelm” and can even unlock “first strike” on gold rank - that makes him a cavalry unit that can take out pikeman without many issues.
Since they are a goblin unit they get “cave crawling”, which makes him a very effective unit to use as an underground scout, if you got that kind of money. When it comes to pure damage, they are slightly inferior to Black Knights and Mammoth Riders but a lot cheaper in return. Defiantly a unit worth keeping in your armies if you are strapped for cash or are operating in the underground.

6th: Dwarf Boar Rider

Stats: 57 💗
32 👢
13👅
10 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage
Unit Cost: 99 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Direct combat
Notable abilities: None.
Notable characteristics: Very sturdy cavalry that has reduced movement speed.

Not a lot to talk about the Boar Rider either. He is yet another tough dwarf unit that, like all dwarves, has “cave crawling”. I am not such a big fan of Boar Riders, although I admit that their sturdiness makes them quite easy to use, since you don´t have to worry too much about arrows and magic as with other cavalry. Pikemen still obliterate Boar Riders pretty quickly and the lack of special abilities make the Boar Rider rather boring to use.
Since he has slightly less movement, he isn´t very good at flanking enemies, which is negated by their high defense and resistance, which in turn make him better in direct combat. I would replace them with Warg Riders if you are operating mostly in the underground, else go with the top 3 units of this list. Alternatively, you can focus entirely on infantry instead, since the Boar Rider is only slightly faster than them.

7th: Tigran Sabretooth Chariot

Stats: 55 💗
36 👢
10👅
8 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 12 physical damage
Throw Sun Spear: 7 physical and 7 fire damage
Unit cost: 100 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Flanking
Notable abilities: “Throw Sun Spear”.
Notable characteristics: Very agile cavalry unit which is perfect for flanking.

That is a long name jeesh. The pure speed of the Sabretooth Chariot is their best trait, but since both their defense and resistance are pretty low, they are pretty bad in head-to-head combat. That makes the Chariot very vulnerable to enemy support units. His unique “throw sun spear” ability doesn´t require any action points. Throw the sun spear on the enemy from one side and use the superior speed of the Chariot to flank them from the other side (use another unit alternatively). This ability can also be used to finish off weak enemies and use the main attack on another enemy.
A bit stronger than the Human Cavalry on paper, but the low defense and resistance make them completely unsuited to fight other melee units in direct combat. His “throw sun spear” is still the greatest advantage the Chariot has, but since all Tigrans have athletics anyways they don´t really need a dedicated cavalry on the battlefield. I´d recommend to switch them out for a better cavalry unit if you get your hands on them. The Chariot isn´t terrible but due to his weak stats not that great either.

8th: Draconian Raptor

Stats: 55 💗
36 👢
11👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: 6 physical and 6 fire damage
Unit Cost: 90 gold (8 upkeep)
Sub-class: Flanking
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “inflict immolation”
Notable characteristics: Deals a mix of fire and physical damage when attacking.

Being able to deal a substantial amount of fire damage makes the Raptor well suited to take out units with low resistance. However, if a unit has a high resistance or even fire protection the damage output of the Raptor will quickly drop by quite a bit. His own defense stats aren´t that great either - especially considering resistance. Non-fire magical attacks will obliterate a Raptor pretty quickly.
At gold rank they do get “inflict immolation”, which helps a bit against undead units. Speaking of the undead: The Raptor might be the single best cavalry unit to be used against the undead, since most undead suffer from a weakness to fire damage. Since his strength can turn into a weakness and since he is rather unreliable with his low resistance, I change them out rather quickly once I get access to the tech of other races.

9th: Halfling Pony Rider

Stats: 55 💗
32 👢
11👅
12 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 11 physical damage
Unit Cost: 80 gold
Sub-class: Direct combat
Notable abilities: Gold-rank “strong will”.
Notable characteristics: Extraordinary high resistance.

Regarding halfling units, the Pony Rider is probably the best melee unit you can build as the halflings, since he is pretty cheap and has enough HP to survive a couple hits from weak melee infantry/cavalry. The most striking trait of the Pony Rider is his incredible amount of resistance, which is the reason he is classified as a direct combat cavalry. With such a high resistance, the Pony Rider is able to annihilate support units.
Unfortunately, the Pony Rider does come with lower movement, similar to the Boar Rider - that makes him rather unsuited for flanking duties. These little guys actually get “strong will” at gold rank, which is a pretty neat ability to have on a melee unit. Big thanks to Iguana-on-a-stick and Staythecourse for pointing out the high resistance and lower movement, which I originally forgot to mention. Unless you go up against a crap ton of support units you are better off switching to other cavalry units - regarding melee units, that’s a smart thing to do as a halfling player anyways (unless you got your happiness up to ridiculous levels).

Final Chapter: Tier 3 units

This section is special, since Tier 3 units differ in unit type quite a bit. The role of Tier 3 units differs from unit to unit although they usually are a direct upgrade compared to a lower tier unit of the same race. Some of them are better when flanking while others are much better off being your frontline brawler unit. Finally, just because a unit is at the bottom of the list doesn´t mean that it´s bad, it just means that I think there are units out there that are better overall and more versatile. Used right, each and every Tier 3 unit is amazing. The sub-classes for this section are: Brawler, Flanking and Other.

1st: High Elf Gryphon Rider

Stats: 65 💗
30 👢
12👅
12 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 15 physical damage
Unit cost: 140 gold and 30 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Flanking
Notable abilities: “Flying”, “first strike” and gold-rank tireless.
Notable characteristics: Flying cavalry unit with a lot of resistance.

My personal favorite, the Gryphon Rider is a fantastic mix between a frontline brawler and quick flanking unit. Thanks to their flying mount they are able to flank enemies very effectively, while they are tanky enough to face most enemies head-on. Their “first strike” allows them to take on even pikemen without too many issues, while their gold-rank “tireless” allows them to be used as a blocking unit for your archers and support units to shoot over.
Compared to some of the other tier 3 units their defense isn´t that good, but it´s offset with the high mobility and high resistance - that makes him a great support hunter. Incredible versatile and in my eyes the best tier 3 unit in the game. They are incredible useful in almost any situation, be it in siege battles or the open field. Unless we are looking at tier 4 units, there is no real point in switching out Gryphon Riders unless you favor more brute strength or very high defense.

2nd: Human Knight

Stats: 70 💗
36 👢
13👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 16 physical damage
Unit Cost: 160 gold and 10 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Brawler
Notable abilities: “Devastating charge” and gold-rank “Strong Will”.
Notable characteristics: Fantastic all-purpose tier 3 unit that can be evolved from cavalry.

The 2nd best racial tier 3 cavalry unit in terms of versatility. While he lacks the necessary specialization to fulfill highly specific tasks, he delivers good results across the board, be it in direct fights, tanking damage or flanking enemies. His strongest ability is “devastating charge”, which turns 2-hit charge attacks into an instant death to low tier enemies. He also comes with “dragon slayer” and “monster slayer”.
Once reaching gold rank he unlocks “strong will”, which makes the Knight immune to converting and various spirit debuffs. One special property of the Human Knight is that he can be acquired by evolving a Human Cavalry (which is guaranteed unlike Hatchlings evolving into a Flyer). Due to his incredible versatility and easy access the Human Knight makes for a perfect all-purpose tier 3 unit, which should only be changed out if you can get your hands on Gryphon Riders or want a more specialized unit.

3rd: Dwarf Firstborn

Stats: 70 💗
28 👢
14👅
12 ✟
Melee Attack: 14 physical and 2 fire damage
Unit Cost: 165 gold and 22 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Brawler
Notable abilities: “Mind control immunity” and gold-rank “fire aura”.
Notable characteristics: Very high defense and resistance.


You won´t be able to find a more durable tier 3 unit than the Firstborn. He is able to tank a ridiculous amount of damage, while his melee attack (which deals a bit of fire damage) is powerful enough to wipe the floor with low tier units. That makes him an excellent choice if you need a tough brawler unit or need a “living wall” for your ranged units to shoot over. His biggest weakness is his low mobility compared with other tier 3 units and is also very expensive.
This low mobility can seriously cripple a Firstborn if the enemy is smart enough to use spells or combat abilities to lower their movement, which ranged units can use to slowly chip away the Firstborn’s health. Due to “mind control immunity” you don´t have to worry about enemies converting him. They are also fire immune, which turns them into a fantastic screening force for Flame Tanks and allows you to use abilities like “destabilized mana core” without a care in the world. If you got the money and production capabilities a fantastic late-game replacement for your Dwarf Axeman. Unless you want a cheaper or more mobile tier 3 unit Firstborns are the way to go.

4th: Orc Shock Trooper

Stats: 75 💗
32 👢
13👅
9 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 17 physical damage (+3 with veteran war cry)
Unit Cost: 160 gold and 20 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Brawler
Notable abilities: Veteran “War-cry” and gold-rank “killing momentum”.
Notable characteristics: Very high melee strength but vulnerable due to low resistance.

Only slightly weaker than the Firstborn, since the Shock Trooper has a very low resistance. That means he is easily dispatched by support units and certain heroes if he can´t reach them in time. What is speaking for the Shock Trooper is his ridiculous high damage output and with his veteran “war-cry” he can further increase it to the point where he obliterates even tier 4 units. Shock Troopers also possess a high amount of movement, which makes it easier for them to reach their enemies before they deal a lot of damage to them.
At gold rank the Shock Trooper gets “killing momentum” which suits the damaged-focused nature of the Shock Trooper very well. When picking the 4th military governance upgrade all Shock Troopers become “fearsome” - defiantly grab that if you use Shock Troopers as your main frontline infantry unit. A fantastic tier 3 unit if damage output and high defense is important, but not very good if the enemy has a lot of support units. If that happens to be the case switch them out for a unit with more resistance like the Knight or the Gryphon Rider.

5th: Tame Troll

Stats: 68 💗
30 👢
12👅
10 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 17 physical damage
Unit Cost: 150 gold (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Brawler
Notable abilities: “Regrowth”, “guard breaker”, veteran “killing momentum”, gold-rank “fearsome”.
Notable characteristics: Vulnerable to fire, else incredible tanky unit with a powerful melee attack.

A unique unit that can only be built by goblin players after choosing the 4th military governance upgrade. Tame Trolls come with a ton of abilities including: “Demolisher”, “Wall Crusher”, “Guard Breaker” and regrowth”. As he levels up, he even unlocks “killing momentum” as veterans and “fearsome” at gold rank. All of that combined turns Tame Trolls into a dangerous Tier 3 unit that smashes tier 1 and tier 2 units into pulp.
In terms of racial units the most tanky thing the goblins can build - but gets a bit redundant if you got access to War Breeds when playing Warlord. To counter his insane offensive capabilities the Tame Troll does come with a 40% fire weakness and rather low resistance for a tier 3 unit - support units can easily dispatch them if they got units to tank the hit. On a side note: You don´t have to fear low-morale penalties from Tame Trolls, as they aren´t “dedicated to evil” like his wild counterpart is. Replace them if you need something with more resistance - damage-wise you are all set with Tame Trolls.

6th: Tigran Sphinx

Stats: 60 💗
30 👢
11👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 15 physical damage
Unit Cost: 150 gold and 20 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Other
Notable abilities: “Sun Disk”, “Cause fear” and gold-rank “fear strike”.
Notable characteristics: Unsuited for direct fights, but has nice abilities.

This tier 3 unit is used a bit differently that the higher entries on this list, hence it´s classification as an irregular unit. That makes the Sphinx to the only tier 3 irregular in the game - which means that rogues and people with the “explorer” sphere can give their Sphinxes some nice upgrades. In a direct fight the Sphinx isn´t that amazing due it´s low defense and resistance. The strong point of the Sphinx is it´s special abilities, being “sun disk”, “cause fear” and on gold rank “fear strike”.
Sun Disk fires a beam of fire magic that deals damage to enemies in a 4-hex line in front of the Sphinx - quite similar to a cannon, just without the insane range. “Cause fear” allows the Sphinx to panic an enemy next to it, while “fear strike” allows the Sphinx to panic enemies while it´s attacking them. That is an amazing ability, which is why I recommend to prioritize to level them up as fast as you can. Finally, they also posses “mind control immunity”. If you prefer a sturdier tier 3 unit or want one that deals more melee damage go ahead and switch them out.

7th: Draconian Flyer

Stats: 64 💗
30 👢
11👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 16 physical damage
Unit Cost: 150 gold and 20 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Flanking
Notable abilities: “Overwhelm” and gold-rank “killing momentum”.
Notable characteristics: Flying tier 3 infantry unit that is rather squishy.



The Flyer is a bit of an odd mix of brawler and flanking unit. “Overwhelm” and “projectile resistance” makes them pretty good against shielded infantry but due to their rather low defense they aren´t very good in direct combat. That´s something they got in common with the Sphinx, which offsets that with it´s special abilities.
All of this combined makes the Flyer a great unit when used as a flanking unit, which makes short work of shielded infantry and archers - but is very vulnerable to hard-hitting melee units and support units. At gold rank the Flyer does get “killing momentum”, which allows him to massacre several archers at once or go on defense after killing them. I strongly recommend to give your Flyers the 4th military governance upgrade, which gives them “martial arts”. Once you grabbed that, your Flyers are pretty effective when attacking head-on as well, but still vulnerable when defending. That’s why they don´t make for a good “living wall”. Change them out for another tier 3 unit if you want the improved Peak of the Forefathers or prefer a sturdier unit.

8th: Frostling Ice Queen

Stats: 65 💗
32 👢
12👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 6 physical and 6 frost damage
Unit Cost: 150 gold and 20 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Other
Notable abilities: “Ice nova” and gold-rank “inflict freezing cold”.
Notable characteristics: Starts off weak in melee combat but has a great AoE “guard breaker” ability.

The Frostling Ice Queen is an odd tier 3 unit, since it plays a lot different than other tier 3 units. Her “ice nova” ability that breaks the enemy’s guard in a 3-hex radius around the Ice Queen. This, however, is risky to do since the defense, resistance and melee strength of an Ice Queen isn´t that great - so coordinate the use of “ice nova” with your other units. To make things easier for the Ice Queen, you should also have a Royal Guard use “pledge of protection” on her, which actually helps both units as the Royal Guards gets +2 defense from it.
Be aware that her “dome of frost”, which chills non-frostlings around the Ice Queen, can easily backfire if the frostlings aren’t your main race. Her gold-rank “inflict freezing cold” can freeze enemies solid when attacking. Similar to the Sphinx you should replace your Ice Queens if you prefer an easier-to-use Tier 3 unit or one that is more tanky with a stronger melee attack.

9th: Goblin Big Beetle

Stats: 65 💗
36 👢
12👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 11 physical and 6 poison damage
Unit Cost: 135 gold and 18 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Brawler
Notable abilities: “Overwhelm”, “demolisher” and “wall crushing”.
Notable characteristics: Cavalry unit that deals a lot of poison damage and can destroy walls.

I don´t really like the Big Beetle, which is why I am very glad that the goblins have the Tame Troll. The Big Beetle isn´t nearly as strong as the Gryphon Rider and Human Knight who both fulfill the similar role. They do have “overwhelm” which helps a lot against shielded infantry and pikemen - their high poison damage kills off high elves and magical creatures pretty quick. Since their physical damage is lower than many other tier 3 units, they are very weak against the undead - since they have “demolisher” this does not apply to machines.
They are decently useful in siege battles, as they have “wall crushing” - so does the Tame Troll. See: That’s the main reason I dislike the Big Beetle so much. The Goblins have the Tame Troll that is just SO much better than the Big Beetle, that has more abilities than the Big Beetle and has much better stats apart from his fire weakness. Either replace them with Tame Trolls or other Tier 3 units.

10th: Halfling Eagle Rider

Stats: 60 💗
36 👢
11👅
11 ✟
Melee Attack: (3x) 13 physical damage
Unit Cost: 140 gold and 30 mana (16 upkeep)
Sub-class: Flanking
Notable abilities: “Wing Beat”.
Notable characteristics: Pretty squishy tier 3 unit that doesn´t excel at anything really.

The Eagle Rider isn´t terrible compared to other halfling units - but that´s just the problem. Compared to other tier 3 units the Eagle Rider seems ridiculously weak, although he can get lucky pretty often if you get them the 3rd military governance upgrade. Halflings units in general are pretty bad in melee combat, which is why I don´t get why their racial tier 3 isn´t more ranged focused. Don´t bother putting them up against units that are good at melee-combat - even tier 1 infantry can kill off an Eagle Rider without many issues.
Pony Riders are much cheaper than Eagle Riders and do a pretty good job in direct combat - for a halfling unit. What the Eagle Rider is good at is flanking enemies. Thanks to their “wingbeat” they have a small AoE attack that allows them to deal damage without fearing retaliation damage. I recommend to switch them out for … pretty much any other tier 3 unit. They are useful if you want an airforce, but that’s really it - other flying tier 3 units are much better in that specific role. As you can guess by now, I tend not to bother that much with Eagle Riders - I stick with hordes of Pony Riders instead (why does that sound so wrong?).

Final words

So there we have it folks. This is my ranking of the racial units of each species in Age of Wonders 3.
Of course I hope you agree with me on most entries or at least understand my reasoning and I hope my personal opinions haven´t influences this guide too much (except the halflings screw those guys :/). Like I already said in the beginning - should you have questions, suggestions or opinions to share feel free to post it in the comments. I don´t claim to be an "all-knowing AoW guru", so I might change some of the entries if you think I overlooked an important aspect. In any case, I hope you now got a better understanding of each unit and know how to build yourself the perfect army.

Again, the link to my other AoW guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1463804699

Link to my AoW Planetfall guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2057256649

Special Thanks

I want to make a small shoutout to the people that helped me create and improve both of my AoW III guides. All of them have been a great help in their own way and I want them to have a special place in both guides. Special thanks to:

Iguana-on-a-stick for the fantastic discussions we had in chat and the many tips on how to improve the guide and unit ranking.

Staythecourse for several great comments to help improve the guide and re-rank a couple units. Thanks to both him him and Iguna-on-a-stick for pointing out several minor mistakes I made while creating the guide.

Blackarrowgaming, an AoW III youtuber that helped me tremendously at getting better in the game and giving me the "moral support" when I was about to quit the game all those years ago. While I am not into making advertisment for other people, he does deserve much more attention for his great work - should you need more help or want to further improve your tactics make sure to check out his channel!

The makers of the AoW III Wiki for providing the necessary raw material I needed to create this guide. While a couple informations were outdated, it helped me a lot during the creation period of my guides.

And finally the developers of AoW III for creating my most favorite strategy game yet. With all the unit diversity, different races, different classes and specialisations, the great random map generator and leader customization you made a game that will definatly stay in my library for the rest of my life.

Thanks to everyone on the list, you all have been a great help. This guide wouldn´t have been possible to exist in the qualitiy it is today, if I didn´t had a helping hand from all of these people (aannnddd the AoW wiki). Have a nice day everyone!

[★ Spaceflash ★]

Hello. The unique race-class combos are really one of the best things about aow3, as they offer near countless playstyles, strategies and - of course - replayability. I do have a class unit guide up if you are interested in those types of units. But going into even more detail in this guide would simply blow it up even more than it already is.
I hope AoW4 will become so in-depth once it is finished (it sure as hell feels unfinished right now). It´s missing the same replayability of aow3 and I really dont like the fact, that races are almost purely cosmetic - also what is up with that artsytle (rip elves and tigrans). Since most DLC havent released yet, I still got my hopes up for aow4 to become a great game at some point.

[OwlRaider]

Similarly some racial units which are actually very good become awfully redundant and actually the worse alternative in a specific race-class combination. Perhaps the best example of this is the Elven Longbowmen if you're also an Archdruid as the Elven Hunter is so much better and only like 5 production more expensive(and same upkeep as it's still tier 1). Similarly the Goblin Tame Troll is basically outclassed by the Goblin Halfbreed if playing Warlord, to the point where as Goblin Warlord(which is an amazing combo btw) you always want the other racial ability to simply not have them and just stick to Halfbreeds.

[OwlRaider]

As far as strictly comparing racial units this is a pretty good job. However it's important to not forget you always have a class not just a race, which comes with its own set of units. Some racial units may be pretty bad for much needed for a specific race-class combination, or others being mediocre but amazing in a specific race-class combination. The best example is perhaps the Frostling Ice Queen, which being the only tier 3 support unit in the game(unless I'm missing some minor dwelling alternative) tremendously benefits from classes that boost support units, most notably the Theocrat, which make her a much better unit than she is in a different class.

[Szympq]

Frostling harpoon thrower has polearm ability, which is pretty anoying fighting against them.

[GanjaGod]

One extremely useful ability of the white witches is swimming. When playing as a sorcerer, stacks of white witches (and summons) can be used to very rapidly conquer the map, zipping through oceans and rivers, where pretty much all other support units would be slowed to a grind.

[★ Spaceflash ★]

definitely spelling mistake has been pointed out already but I dont really feel like proof reading this guide for the 100th time, lol.
You actually answered your own question: Yes, build a different unit or hire/convert units that fulfill your needs/preferences better. This, of course, requires you to have access to these replacement units, so its more of a mid-game or late-game thing to do.
If you want a more specific answer, you´d need to tell me which unit you want help with.

[Sturm]

"If you prefer a sturdier tier 3 unit or want one that deals more melee damage go ahead and switch them out." - what does this mean? Are you saying to build a different unit, or is there some way to change what you're allowed to produce that I don't know about?
Also, "defiantly" is not the same as "definitely".

[★ Spaceflash ★]

Hello. I´ve actually created an entire guide about class units, see the guide introduction or final words section for a link to it!

[sfyke]

You never mentioned the Dreadnaught...Playing Draconian and having Musketeers early makes them a monster. Add a cannon or Juggernaught and let them roll over everyone. Dreadnaughts in any race can be devestaing most of the way thru the game!!

[Pimpin Pippin]

Awesome, thank you :)