Choosing your units

"To mobolise the whole army to struggle for advantage would take too long, yet to struggle for advantage with a stripped-down army results in lack of of equipment.
    So if you travel light, not stopping day or night, doubling your usual pace, struggling for an advantage a hundred miles away, your military leaders will be captured. Strong soldiers will get there first, the weary later on - as a rule one in ten make it" - Sun Tzu

    The first thing that you need to do in TAO is decide on what units you are going to use in your limited army. With only 10 units allowed on the arena, you must create a well working army that not only attacks, but defends as well. The first step in choosing these units lies in choosing what sort of strategy you are willing to play.

Strategies

    There are limitless amount of strategies that can be formed in TAO, however there are only a few major ones from which the others branch off from. They are:
Offensive: Exactly what you would expect, an offensive army specialises in dealing damage turn after turn after turn. These armies commonly use buff units such as knights and mud golems as well as strong spellcasters, namely witches
Defensive: More commonly known as the turtler, the defensive army relies on the enemy coming to them, employing high use of barrier wards, lightning wards and clerics, the defensive army aims at picking off units one by one as they come to attack.
Flanking: The flanking army uses units with very high movement and relatively low recovery to surround the enemy and close them in, giving units access to back armour no matter where the enemy unit is placed on the field. These types of armies use units such as scouts and assassins.
General: The generic army, this type of army takes little bits of all the above types of armies and puts them together, dealing damage, flanking and defending against enemy attacks at the same time. It is the "Jack of all Trades and Master of None" strategy.

Choosing your units

    With your strategy in mind, it is time to choose your units! Below is a brief analysis of each of the units of TAO:
Knight: The basic troop of your , the knight has high armour, high blocking power, high health, high damage and fast recovery time. However it is a bit slower than a lot of the units such as the scout and the assasin and is also susceptible to magic casters such as witches and pyros who's attacks it can not defend against.
Pyromancer: Probably the most underused unit by veteran TAO players, the Pyromancer is good at attacking defensive formations with its cross shaped attack, it can hit up to 5 units at once, dealing an average amount of damage.
Dragonspeaker Mage: The Dragonspeaker Mage has raised the popularity of Pyros amongst most players who have them now. Giving Pyros an attack bonus, it is definitely a force to be reckoned with. However, you must have a dragon to use it and when you have a dragon, the dragons power will essentially be zapped to zero.
Witches: Probably the most favourite among most users, the Witch has a lurker style attack seen in SC, hitting up to 4 units in a straight line, and dealing massive damage, its only flaw is its low blocking chance, low health and slow recovery time.
Scout: The scout is the most useful unit to break focus on those enchantresses and frost golems as well as flanking the enemy and reaching the back armour of most units. It has average block chance at 60% and has a range of 6 squares. The drawback, a fairly slow recovery time and less than average damage.
Assasin: The assassin is able to move 4 squares, flanking the enemy with ease. Its ability to attack 4 units at once adjacent to it make it extremely good against those bunched up units. However, its low health and armour means it can be taken out in two turns by most units.
Enchantress: The enchantress can paralyse any unit within a 2 square radius. Used in many different ways, the enchantress is capable of crippling the enemy's advance. It is however susceptible to ranged units breaking its focus such as scouts and pyros and with low health, no armour and block chance they don't last long if targetted.
Barrier Ward: The barrier ward allows you to create a shield around any unit, protecting it from all attacks bar focus spells. HOwever, like the enchantress, the low health and its focus able to be broken easily by ranged units may make some players think twice about using it.
Lightning Ward: The lightning ward has the highest power of any unit in the game. It can take out any spellcaster in one turn and severely injure other units, however, its inability to move and the slowest cooldown period in the game means that in most games it will not be able to fire more than twice as it can be outmaneuvred fairly easily
Cleric: The only unit that can heal in the game, the clerics heal power heals 12 health points of all your units. However, its slow recovery time, lack of armour and low health mean that it is easily taken out by most units in two turns, even with healing.
Mud Golem: The first new unit to be released, the mud golem possesses the "teleport" ability, allowing them to reach the back armour of any unit with its massive 5 square movement. The mud golem has high health, high power and high movement. However, its higher than normal recovery time and lack of armour or block chance make the golem susceptible to a lot of attacks after attacking itself
Frost Golem: The frost golem is like an enchanty on a stick. It can freeze one single enemy unit up to four squares away. The frost golem, like the mud, has an average recovery time and no armour or block chance and as such can die pretty quickly. It is also susceptible to long range units breaking its focus.
Stone Golem: The stone golem is able to give all units within its attack range an extra 30 armour. This means that the units will be tougher and will take a lot more firepower before dieing. The extra armou ussually maens that units can live that extra crucial turn in the battle. However, its very slow movement speed, short attack range and very slow recovery time means that it is susceptible to having its focus broken after the armoured units have gone off.
Dragons: One of the most powerful units in the game, its very high power, ample armour, average blocking, very high health and teleport move, make it a force to be reckoned with. However, it takes up two slots in your army, has a slow recovery time and a limited attack pattern making it susceptible to enemy attacks after attacking
Beast Riders: Beast riders are essentially assasins, with a high amount of movement and average attack, it is good for charging the enemy ranks and attacking two units one behind the other, it is good against the bunker formations to break the focus of those stone golems. However, like the assassin it is fairly weak and can be taken out in 2 turns.

Furgon: Furgon's are one of the most annoying units on the field yet are very effective. They summon shrubs to prevent the enemy from advancing any further, however they can block your own units as well.
    So there you go. All the units have their own strengths and their own weaknesses as well as their own role they can play in a game. Unit selection is very important and is the difference between victory and defeat.

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