Advanced Age: every unit, price and counter

Splitting construct: destroy the frame and it comes apart into TWO smaller drones at 40% strength that keep cutting — the pieces pay no bounty and never split again. Swarms in staggered ranks, runs down wounded prey 20% faster, flanks with its pack (+20%). Kill it twice, or kill the pieces together: AOE is the answer.

• 96 HP
• 16 damage every 0.8 s
• Range 34
• Speed 74
• Melee

Adaptive ooze: the deeper the wound, the faster it reflows — regeneration ramps up to x2.5 at death's door, so slow chip damage heals right back and only a burst or a burn actually kills it. Picks its scrap with the hardest hitter it can outlast, and boils into a frenzy when a packmate dissolves nearby. Fire sears the mending and the frenzy both.

• 180 HP
• 15 damage every 0.9 s
• Range 34
• Speed 65
• Melee · Regenerates

Heat gunner: consecutive darts at the SAME mark run the barrel hotter — +25% per shot, up to double damage — and switching targets vents it cold. Stone doesn't hold the heat: castles never ramp. Anti-air first, flat-flying darts, kites melee on the backpedal. Feed it chaff or kill it before the barrel glows: a focused gunner melts what a distracted one tickles.

• 85 HP
• 14 damage every 1.7 s
• Range 380
• Speed 60
• Ranged

Line-piercing anti-armor: every thrust of the energy lance carries THROUGH, running everyone standing in file behind the first man onto the same point at reduced damage; +60% vs giants, and a set lance still denies a raider's ram with a counter-thrust. Bunching behind a front line feeds it — spread out, or shoot it before it plants.

• 185 HP
• 19 damage every 1 s
• Range 44
• Speed 55
• Melee

Dome projector: instead of a body-blocking shield it raises a hard-light BUBBLE — every ally inside passes 40% of incoming shots and blasts onto the construct's own hull. Braces itself when enemies close (-40%). The dome doesn't stop magic and doesn't stop blades: psions burn it down through the shimmer, and divers fight inside it rent-free.

• 360 HP
• 13 damage every 1 s
• Range 32
• Speed 45
• Melee

Reflecting duelist: seeks out the most expensive enemy to fight, cleaves a second target on the follow-through — and the energy blade turns 25% of every melee blow taken back onto the striker, so brawling it down costs the brawlers. Shoot it, burn it, or pay the toll: ranged fire never triggers the reflex.

• 340 HP
• 46 damage every 1 s
• Range 40
• Speed 58
• Melee

Chain artillery: psychic lances that no shield or dome can stop — and every hit ARCS to the nearest other enemy at half damage, so a packed line eats two wounds per cast. Spreading out breaks the chain; clumping feeds it. Fragile and slow to focus: dive it before it fires twice.

• 200 HP
• 87 damage every 1.7 s
• Range 360
• Speed 45
• Ranged

Air hunter: an alien blade-frame that locks onto anything airborne and crosses the whole map to impale it — the twin shear talons do x2.4 to aircraft, a held intercept dart arms a devastating opening volley, and every air kill re-arms that volley on the spot: a hot shrike chains armed strikes from mark to mark. Against the ground it's nearly useless: fielding one into an empty sky is the mistake. Plasma gunners and lightning bring it down.

• 310 HP
• 38 damage every 1.1 s
• Range 175
• Speed 118
• Flying · Ranged

Phase cavalry: builds momentum at full boost and PHASES clean over any blocker standing between it and its backline prey — the escort is hopped, never fought — then the ram lands on the gunner, mortar or psion it came for. Momentum survives the hop. A set lance or braced barrier still meets the ram at the landing: the dash skips the escort, never the counter.

• 290 HP
• 46 damage every 0.95 s
• Range 46
• Speed 130
• Melee

The javelin doctrine as a hover plasma battery: a heavy bolt that cooks colossus-class prey for double damage (walkers, praetorians, constructs, leviathans) and flashes off light frames for half. The core takes seconds to charge each bolt, so cheap drones swarm it under. Bubble domes soak a share; dash past it.

• 230 HP
• 86 damage every 3.2 s
• Range 380
• Speed 42
• Ranged

Gravity siege: singularity shells don't scatter the survivors — they DRAG everyone near the blast toward the impact point, clustering the line for whatever lands next. The mortar sets the table; a beam, a stomp or a second shell eats off it. Can't hit fliers, planted doctrine resists the drag, and a diver inside minimum range jams it into a panicked drift.

• 325 HP
• 102 damage every 2.7 s
• Range 540
• Speed 30
• Ranged

Attrition engine: dissolves the battlefield's dead into nanite swarms under its command. It withdraws when melee closes and the swarms guard its retreat — but they disperse when it falls, so dive it, blast its swarms, or starve it of matter. What fire destroys is slag the forge cannot use.

• 275 HP
• 45 damage every 1.55 s
• Range 320
• Speed 45
• Ranged

Seismic giant: every piston-fist slam quakes the ground itself — all enemies near the impact take the shockwave, are shoved back and stagger slowed — and castle stone takes half again more. Self-mending nanite plating only fire keeps down. Burn it, bring a giant slayer, or stay out of the quake ring; fliers never feel it.

• 470 HP
• 43 damage every 1.6 s
• Range 48
• Speed 42
• Melee · Regenerates

Air power: a living warship that holds the battle line at altitude, opens its jaws, and deliberately rakes the densest enemy formation with a continuous plasma lance. Dogfights lock that lance onto the rival flier. Less per head, the whole formation bleeds; melee can't touch it, so bring plasma gunners.

• 415 HP
• 46 damage every 2.2 s
• Range 210
• Speed 80
• Flying · Ranged