Strategier

Undead

Undead Mercenary Rush Guide

1.03 - May be valid in higher versions

Undead units, unlike any other races, cost unusually high amount of gold / wood as the tech tree goes up. While the crypt fiend costs 250 / 40, head hunters cost only 160/20. Admittedly, their damages and hitpoints of respective counter parts are inferior. But the early attacks can be limited to ghoul rush for most resource-starved players. 

One of the existing tactic that I’ve noticed to compensate this is the so called “merc rush”. Basically, the merc rush is purchasing the units from Goblin Mercenary camp which are at higher tech trees than the units that you can usually get at that point of the game. These units will allow your army to be twice as strong and durable (with aid of troll witchdoctor and huge ogre mauler) On top of that, you’ll realize that you can level your heroes faster, and in turn, destroy your opponents quicker as well. 

There are several variants on using this sort of rush with undead. But the most simple one, I have found is to use this in conjunction with ghouls / death knight, and then crypt fiends / necromancer in mid game for support. 

Rough build order is like following – by no means is the build order essential to pull this strategy. Don’t be afraid to put your own creative twists into it: 

1) Put all your acolytes to the haunted gold mine. Make the ghoul start harvesting lumber.

2) Queue 2 acolytes

3) Pull one of the acolyte out of the gold mine and build Ziggurat, Crypt then Graveyard. 

4) Build a second crypt

5) After the first ziggurat is done, start producing Death Knight

6) Queue 2 ghouls on the first crypt. When the second crypt is complete, research cannibalize

7) Start leveling up with your hero and 2 ghouls (at least 2 ghouls)

8) Build 2 ziggurat at this point – this is done to leave enough headroom for the mercenaries you will hire after you take over the mercenary camp.

9) Keep producing ghouls

10) When you have enough money, upgrade to the halls of dead

11) Build one more ziggurat

12) Around now, your hero should be level 3 at least. Make sure to get death coil – it is important that you keep your army alive. With cannibalize and death coil, your army should be quite durable.

13) After you have purchased all the mercenaries, start producing crypt fiends / necromancers.

14) Before you start attacking, visit the goblin merchant to buy scroll of protection and scroll of healing. This will strengthen the integrity of your army when engaging in the battle.

15) If you have money to spend, buy a zepplin, preferably for killing your opponent’s heroes and the surrounding units.

At this point, you should have amassed enough army to reach low upkeep. This is the point where you should pull your first move and attack your opponent. Make sure to use your items and the zepplin nicely. Use scroll of protection for additional armor and protection for the zepplin. With your hero healing your armies with deathcoil (or killing the opponent’s army), ghouls cannibalizing the corpses and the mercenaries doing their job, you should be able to end the game in that single battle. Make sure not to waste any mercenaries, they have cost you a lot and you should make sure to keep them safe – these units should last you throughout the game.

If the game isn’t finished in the first assault, make sure to level your deathknight above lvl5, so you can make use of Animate Dead. Bring the additional support consisting of crypt fiends and necromancers. Start attacking your opponent’s units rather than the buildings or peon line. After you see more than 6 units die, cast Animate Dead – the reason for this is that Animate Dead has a cap of 6 unit animation per casting. Make sure to heal them constantly with death coil while keeping your hero / mercenaries safe. If you keep up the push and tech up accordingly to your opponent’s counter, you should be fine.

For mid to late games, I suggest making an expansion (haunt a gold mine) somewhere far from your own base and your opponent’s base. With necromancers and deathknight raising the dead and ghouls cannibalizing the corpses, you should be able to keep your opponent in defensive stance. Once you hit High Upkeep and have 1 functional expansion, start pouring in your army into your opponent’s base and start building multiple crypts and slaughter house. After prolonged assault, you should be back at low upkeep. At this point, you want to start researching everything and save up your resource by micromanaging your units. After you have about 500 to 600+ gold, start pumping units from every crypt / slaughter house possible. I’d suggest going upgraded fiends / meatwagon / abomination and skip the ghouls entirely since you have an expansion to support more durable / stronger units. I wouldn’t suggest getting gargoyles – the reason for this is because they are hugely imbalanced. (their ground attack has insane range and there is no cost effective anti air units for any races to counter gargoyles.)

Some tips to consider : 

1) Make sure to keep your Death Knight ALIVE. The high damage from its normal attack and healing of deathcoil is essential to the early game. Keep it alive at all costs. Microing your ghouls to protect your deathknight will also serve in benefits of your normal units as deathknight can make corpses out of organic units pretty fast.

2) If you don’t have enough supply / money to buy all the mercenaries in the camp, make sure to get witchdoctor first. This will increase the durability of your army. If you have enough money for two, get troll berserker – this will add much needed ranged attack to your swarming undead army. The ogre brute will come the latest for tanking against those annoying riflemen and the opponent’s hero. Make sure to put the brute at front, and the berserker / witchdotcor behind the line of fire.

3) Crypt fiends are your best hero killers in the mid game. Make sure to selectively target the units that you want to kill the most. With high amount of hit points that crypt fiends have (500 hp with 1 armor), they can tank quite a lot of damage

4) Research Skeletal Longevity before you start raising the skeletons. This will save your skeletons from going “poop” in the middle of the battle.

5) When upgrading, upgrade the armors first. As for the attack upgrades, concentrate on upgrading crypt fiends rather than the ghouls.

6) Don’t build spirit towers unless your first assault failed miserably. These things, however, will keep you alive if your opponent somehow managed to catch you off guard. Make sure to repair them periodically.

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