Dungeon units, continued

Minotaur/Minotaur King
Attack: 14/15
Defense: 12/15
Hit Points: 50/50
Damage: 12-20/12-20
Speed: 6/8
Movement: ground
Cost: 500/575
Special Abilities: +1 to individual morale/+1 to individual morale

Minotaurs are powerful melee units and are hands-down the best fifth-level creature. Even unupgraded they have a deadly combination of attack, defense, hit points, and damage. The upgraded minotaurs are even more powerful, able to shred all lesser creatures but the crusader. The minotaur king can even tackle tougher troops like the wyvern and manticore. Upgrade your minotaurs at the first opportunity because the upgrade is significant. And these creatures aren't even the most expensive fifth-level troops. Both types of minotaurs also enjoy good morale, making them more likely to strike twice in the round. Amplify these creatures with spells such as bless, bloodlust, and haste and you will have a very deadly stack on your hands. A mid game army composed of minotaur kings, medusa queens, evil eyes, and harpy hags is arguably the strongest army up to that point, vying with the castle creatures of the same level for supremacy.

Manticore/Scorpicore
Attack: 15/16
Defense: 14/14
Hit Points: 80/80
Damage: 14-20/14-20
Speed: 7/11
Movement: Flight
Cost: 850/1050
Special Abilities: Paralyze opponents/Paralyze opponents

The manticore and scorpicore provide speed and flight to the dungeon army, but compared to other sixth-level creatures, they come out on the weak end. They are only marginally more powerful than wyverns and suffer greatly versus naga queens, dread knights, and even war unicorns. Manticores are fairly cheap, and their upgraded prices are at least commensurate with their ability. However, notice that they aren't really any stronger than the minotaur king and only have higher hit points and speed. Minotaur kings should be your backbone, not manticores. Scorpicores do enjoy a significant speed upgrade, and are good for providing quick flying strike capability. However, you will need minotaurs and the two dungeon ranged units to really add teeth to a scorpicore attack. The scorpicore special ability can paralyze opponents for three turns. Paralysis operates the same as the medusa's pertrification ability. Upgrade the manticore after the beholders, medusae, minotaurs, and harpies.

Red Dragon/Black Dragon
Attack: 19/25
Defense: 19/25
Hit Points: 180/300
Damage: 40-50/40-50
Speed: 11/15
Movement: flight
Cost: 2500+1 sulfur/4000+2 sulfur
Special Abilities: Immune to spells level one to four, attack extends two tiles/Immune to all spells, attack extends two tiles

The red dragon is perhaps the second most powerful unupgraded seventh-level creature. Its upgrade is also powerful, but weaker than the archangel and titan. Dragons are immune to spells, but this can work to their disadvantage as they don't benefit from spells like bless, bloodlust, or counterstrike. However, this does mean that your foe can't soften you up with any destructive spells. It also means you can lure enemies to your dragon's side and then cast an area effect spell on the entire grouping of troops and damage multiple creatures without hurting your dragon. Both dragons can attack two tiles with their breath weapon, allowing you to harm two stacks at a time if they are small enough to fill only one tile size. However, you can also harm your own troops with this attack so be careful that you don't get tricked into maneuvering your creatures into the path of your dragons' breath weapons.

One great strategy you can employ with black dragons is to create an army exclusively of these creatures and then cast a powerful armageddon spell at the first opportunity. You'll rock your opponent for massive damage while you escape unscathed. Only an army of archangels, gold dragons, or archdevils will be able to attack you before you can cast armageddon, and even then, black dragons are powerful enough to withstand such a first strike and give you the opportunity to cast the spell. Both dragons are very expensive, as are their dwellings and upgraded dwellings. If you want to field these great beasts, you must acquire additional gold mines and at least two to three sulfur mines. Both red and black dragons do 150 percent damage to giants and titans.