In test play, 12 crawlers with the buffs consistently beat an order giant (E giant), 10 is close, but goes either way. Typical losses about 5 crawlers, without any micro-management - just focussing all to attack one giant.
Also 30 crawlers beat 3 order giants.

Does this mean that they can be an affecitve strike force mid-game and end game?

It takes an order giant 2 hits to kill one, but he can only hit and stun one at a time, while the others all chew his feet.

Obviously, like swords, they would be vulnerable to aoe from a wizard, but he'd also die in about 1 hit to the pack, and if he's focussing on the crawlers he's not hitting something else.

I understand that the build time is not fast when you want a big pack, and that they build in the same queue as juggerknoights, but is that the only thing against the idea?

Any feedback, I know 'conventional wisdom' is that they are not much use after about 3 minutes into the game.

Castle archers? And you realize that 1 giant is only 7 pop. Although its price (and upgrades) is more expensive than 7 crawlers (and upgrades), it can still beat them. Technically you could have around (or over) 14 crawlers to 1 giant in terms of cost, but they aren't effective pop count wise. This is just a guess, unless you wanna try it in game? If you want, this is my information
Asddfg 244 (p.s. not currently online, if you want though I'll get on ASAP)

Quote from DragonFrost

Castle archers? And you realize that 1 giant is only 7 pop. Although its price (and upgrades) is more expensive than 7 crawlers (and upgrades), it can still beat them. Technically you could have around (or over) 14 crawlers to 1 giant in terms of cost, but they aren't effective pop count wise. This is just a guess, unless you wanna try it in game? If you want, this is my information
Asddfg 244 (p.s. not currently online, if you want though I'll get on ASAP)

Thanks for that response. I can easily get play test for info, as I have 2 accounts myself and 2 of my kids have accounts. We did the fights I described (finding 12 crawlers > 1 giant, and 30 crawlers > 3 giants).

The population cost is an issue at the end of the game, but mid game before your aproaching population cap, I think its all about cost as the only resource to worry about - cost is dominant factor, and production is a secondary issue; time and clashing with juggers or bombers.

If I lose 500 worth of crawlers (typically 5 dead, 7 live) and he lost 1500 worth of giant, thats bad for him, good for me - buffs are not lost so I just count unit price. Also, loss of a giant is gonna set his invasion plans back a lot more than my loss of a few crawlers. I'd probably be wanting to swap out the population into higher tier units as I approach cap anyway.

Early game, crawlers are great unbuffed units. I wonder if they can be extended into mid game, by the buffs and larger numbers.

Yes, they are very weak to castle archers, as you say. Just make sure you have a tank to cover them and get them out (speed buff) before the tank falls - tower spawn anyone :)

A pack of crawlers kills a miner so fast the psycological effect may be to force him to garisson miners disproporionatly early.

Dont get me wrong, I am not saying it will work, I am not experienced enough to assert that, I am asking, not telling.


BTW, I also observed about a dozen miners (with hustle) destroy the single giant I put them against to suicide them!
Is that normal :)
I dont suggest a deliberate miner charge though ....

lol definately a bunch of miners could kill any one unit (except flyers :D)

If your opponent is building nothing but giants & Merics, then yeah, full out crawlers may work, focus on the merics, then the giants. If he has one magikill, it may not. One fireball will kill all crawlers.

Quote from Tecness2

If your opponent is building nothing but giants & Merics, then yeah, full out crawlers may work, focus on the merics, then the giants. If he has one magikill, it may not. One fireball will kill all crawlers.

Thanks for the response.
Rather than full out crawlers, I was thinking a pack of them in addition to the army, (maybe 10 to 20 of them?). The build time of full out crawlers would probably make it impractical, I am thinking.

They would be vulnerable, having low hitpoints - very similar to sword's but even more so :) Thats kind of classic DPS roll though. AOE like the blast of a magikill would take them out, but unless they were attacking a unit, the would be almost impossible to target with the slow casting blast. Just make sure their first target is the wizard :)

Somehow I can't help but think; there must be a reason why its a terrible plan and wont work in game.

Some pro players can't get hit by crawlers using Magikill.

Quote from Bladed Fire

Some pro players can't get hit by crawlers using Magikill.

Really? How do they do that?

Quote from Bladed Fire

With walls and good moving, the crawlers are just a crap.

Standing a mage behind a wall isn't really that pro :)
But moving? How could a mage attempt to out-move a group of crawlers? Not saying it cant be done, just saying I cant convceive how it would be done. Unless you mean have a wall, step forward to cast, run back behind the wall.


I agree crawlers are a very weak unit, but against an E giant, having range and stun, its really hard as chaos to know what to use.
Yes, Marrow can reaper them, and if micromanaged 2 marrow can neutralize one giant for ever, but its hard to do that when there is a battle going on.

Another Question;
Does anybody know roughly how much extra damage crawlers do when buffed with pack mentality?

If it was, say, 10% per crawler (in the pack) then +50% damage would be awsome, bit if it was say 1% per crawler, +5% is a waste of resources, better to just buy an additional crawler or two....

(sorry for double-posting, but its a completly new point to the mage & wall discussion above).

Quote from uberman

Standing a mage behind a wall isn't really that pro :)
But moving? How could a mage attempt to out-move a group of crawlers? Not saying it cant be done, just saying I cant convceive how it would be done. Unless you mean have a wall, step forward to cast, run back behind the wall.


I agree crawlers are a very weak unit, but against an E giant, having range and stun, its really hard as chaos to know what to use.
Yes, Marrow can reaper them, and if micromanaged 2 marrow can neutralize one giant for ever, but its hard to do that when there is a battle going on.

I mostly use Magikill to attract the enemy's attention and let them come to my Magikill while he is casting spells, and I use my army to reduce their health while they're running. Sorry if this thing is stupid to use Magikill as an attention for him to be so expensive.

For the record, using 2 crawlers vs 1 sword, unbuffed, it took them a total of about 17 hits to kill the sword - 1 crawler died.
After buffing the crawlers with pack mentality, it took 10 hits to kill a sword - so its a big difference. There were more than 5 crawlers present in the army, but not active in the fight. One crawler lost about 2/3 life.

Numbers are only based on a few runs, so may not be very accurate, but the buff made a big difference.

Important update;
IT WORKS!

Using a quickly assembed army of wings, juggerknights and buffed crawlers I just took out 4 giants with a few merics for support. And it was shockingly effective, against a giant spammer of 1600 rank - he obviously knew how to avoid newbie spammer mistakes.

He poped up a giant, as I was doing my hit and runs, against his economy - hadnt even got tower spawn up, he was really really quick! This first one I almost killed as it feld for the garison, having tried to counter attack me as I withdrew from his statue, but out popped another as I chased the first into garison! So I fell back to cover of my castle-dead to build a counter force. Because crawlers need only gold, have a quick build time and can build at the same time as wings, I maxed out 80 population really quickly (strong economy for the win) and I had about 4 juggerknights and 4 wings left from from my earlier skirmish force. (Think thats 60 pop with 12 miners). I had wings, juggers and crawlers. As soon as I poped the last unit I attacked.

As he came over with his giants they were not all grouped at the tower - he was still building the mass and assembling them. He had 4 giants - two at the tower and two just outside the edge of the view screen. He had about 6-8 healers behind them too I think.

One giant was dead to juggs and wings before he got all 4 into place, followed by the healers which had been stood behind the giant but fell to the crawlers - thanks to jugg charge they couldnt escape the DPS from the wings/crawlers, and slow moving giants couldnt get infront fast enough. Even if it did, the crawlers would still be on them. The crawlers took out the other healers behind the second giant, while the juggs protected the wing from thrown rocks.
Without many healers left to deal with, my crawlers rushed past the giants and ate the last healers, while the juggs tanked and the wings tore up his giants.

The giants couldnt decide who to hit, and could only stun lock max 4 targets at once, it takes 2 giant strikes to kill a crawler, so my 12 or so crawlers distracted a lot of damage and stun effects.


He quit after the last one fell, and I was pumping out reinforements far faster than he could spawn enough giants to defend.

I lost all my juggers, most of the crawlers, and a couple of wings - but I was spawning reinforcements who moved fast enough to join the fight almost as fast as he was killing troops - he couldnt cause any long term losses upon me, but his giants were not being replaced.

Edit to add, numbers quoted are only estimates - what I saw was shit loads of giants and shitloads of merics.

More data; against a statue with resiliance, it took 80 bombers -asif resiliance had no effect.
I will repeat the test to be sure. But I am concerned bt the initial test.
No damage was done before resiliance was bought.

ETA confirmed in re-test. 80 bombers take out an upgraded statue.