Mechabellum Card Guide

You already need to have a setup for this item for you to pick it. It's good on melting points (since the suck tech is sometimes an over commitment and having it on one is enough). Overlord is a good target since it deals so much damage that for example Aerial spec mustang have hard time killing it. Typhoon is also a good target and sometimes a high level rhino from the unit drops. It's not good on steel balls in my opinion since on them you want to tech the suck usually and it doesn't stack

Quite expensive item and it has no clear role since it will buff both HP and ATK. Usually best on units that use both stats effectively like Wraiths, Overlords, Scorpions, Sledgehammers, Wasps, Worms etc.

Three uses for this item; Counter hackers, get slow immunity in base race situations or become immune to EMP. It's very good if the situation is right, but most of the time completely useless.

If a unit drop turn is coming next turn or a giant is a good direction for you it's a must pick. It's basically 100 supply each turn (free shield). The shield is also a lot stronger than a normal shield (60k hp).

This is an aggressive item and it's very good. You can move around your starting units, sell them later and move around your big unit you will get from the unit drop. Being so cheap it's also usable in long range games. You can cheese some rounds without having to make bad deployments.

Very good item. You can do very broken stuff with this by upgrading a unit every turn and selling it immediately. It's pretty expensive so the game needs to have multiple turns before it will be over. You need to be immediately into giants when you pick this.

Very strong item on multiple fast shooting units like mustangs, vulcans etc. Keep in mind that your unit will walk faster. So position accordingly.

Cheap and really effective. Best on big frontliners; giants, rhino, steel ball or sledges.

Very good item. For 50+50 supply you will 1.7x the damage output of a 200-600 supply unit (it's crazy economy if you think about it). I use this most often on an early vulcan or a mustang.

Great with steel balls, hackers, mustangs and what not. Powerhouse on a melting point late game.

Worst of the production items. I value the other two quite highly but very seldom do I pick this. The biggest thing this item provides is a counter to wasps. So if you are building mass Vulcans with marksmen this is pretty good since you are very vulnerable to wasps. Also sometimes good with Melting Points if you have no other wasp clear.

One of the big offenders of balance right now. Because of the unit drops you always get a high level guy and you can force the enemy to build a useless Melting Point with this item. It's also very strong early game on lev 2 starting units on round2 for example. Then you can sell the units later and equipet the nano on a high level unit drop. Doesn't stack with Field Maintenance technology.

It's cheap, but it's most of the time hard to find value from the photon coating. You need to equip to a unit that will start tanking right away.

Putting this on a single target squad will prompt the enemy to usually build a Melting Point. Best use case is in my opinion leveled Steel Balls, high level crawler or a jump drive wasp, but obviously good on about any unit that has a lot of health. Because it's a shield, the normal buff restrictions of item stacking don't apply, thus it's great on fortified hacker and assault marksmen.

Every summoning is good on giants as it protects them. It's good if your giant lives long enough. Try to place it on a giant that has some other purpose for being backline or place it on your winning side if the game is asymmetrical. Bad vs War Factory, very good vs Melting Points.

Tier S item on steel balls if you happen to have leveled balls already. Not that good on single unit squads since they will be still vulnerable to Melting Points. Best on Sledges, Balls and sometimes on Wraiths if your enemy is trying to counter them with AA Marksmen.

Every summoning is good on giants as it protects them. It's good if your giant lives long enough. Try to place it on a giant that has some other purpose for being backline or place it on your winning side if the game is asymmetrical. Bad vs War Factory, very good vs Melting Points.

Not usually good. And if it connects, the enemy can walk around it with mobile beacon next turn.

Very good late game shield destroyer as the area of effect is huge. Late game units are full of technologies that this also disables.

Cheap and low cooldown shield destroyer. It does very little early game, but I often pick it up still because it's so strong later. Early rounds you can slow down their damage and kill off their front line.

Cheap and effective. Usually the enemy shields against it, so the best use for it is to for example flank with an air unit and fire his flank defense. You can combine this with the sticky oil bomb from the tower to burn everything.

I dropped this from S to A. The more I play with this card, the worse it seems. It's too much resources if you get it early and if you get it late it's only one upgrade. Mid game it is good. It is still really powerful. I find that leveling mustangs, sledges or hackers is the best use for this. Leveling giants is too much commitment and keeps your board underdeveloped.

Usually kills 4 enemy shields. Sometimes kills their best units. Sometimes you can't find a good angle for it.

Kills the entire enemy army. I suggest picking up storm callers or melting point EMP to counter the enemy shields the turn you use this. Don't pick this card too early as it's so expensive that winning an early round doesn't matter that much.

Cheap skill that will win you a round early game. Later you can use it to flank and missile the defender or just thin out some troublesome units where you think there will not be a shield.

Very expensive and very defendable. It's often hard to find a good angle where you can kill their shields and make sure they are in the allocated location.

Very cheap compared to the effect. Best against air units as they can't be shielded.

Very strong as it kills lev 1 giants or lev 2 overlords or sometihing like a lev 5 steel ball with item. It's usually very telegraphed where you will be targeting with this, a better player will sell their giant and buy it elsewhere.

Very powerful especially on an aggressively deployed board. It's a bit expensive though.

Very strong on chaotic/aggressive boards. Otherwise often a bit useless.

It's good but the location is a bit telegraphed and the rhino lev 1 isn't that strong of a unit.

Same cost as a normal shield, but you get it multiple times and can drop on enemy side of the map which is useful. Very strong on flanks. I don't always pick it though, as you don't often want a shield on round 2 for example.

If your opponent doesn't shield against this, it just wins you 2 rounds so it's crazy. But a better player will always protected their ranged units. It's often hard to find an un shielded angle. Good vs aggressive pushes that can't be shielded because the units will be on your side of the map.

Cheap overlord for one turn. Sometimes good if you can get their tower. Keep in mind that a better player might shield both their turrets when they see this in the shop. So not picking it will waste the gold for them. I use it mostly to deal 400 damage on the last turn.

Crazy tempo early game and very useful even late game. It summons 2 packs of crawlers and they can't be defended by a missile. You can get the enemy tower easily or just reinforce your fron line.

If you are trying to snipe the enemy tower, it's easily defended by placing shields on both towers. It's usually better to not pick this and let your enemy defend against it. Sometimes the vulcan is very useful on fights or you need the 400 damage from it to end the game this round.

Power level depends a lot if your enemy has anti-air. It's easily defendable as the most obvious location is in the center of enemy towers. One missile kills the pack.

It's a very usable card because of the armor technology and degeneration beam technology.

Meat shield fangs become too fast with this. But if you are pushing with fangs, this is amazing.

This is just a straight upgrade to fortresses as the range is very often just useless.

I don't like this much. It makes it easier for enemy melting points to kill your melting points as the range is often a key factor. This however opens up a line where you use melting points as frontline tanks with crawler summoning. It's very niche though.

I wouldn't want to go into vulcans if I see this card. It is situationally good though. Sometimes you need your vulcan to tank more and the range is sometimes not relevant.

Although arclights benefit a lot from levels, it's not a unit you usually want to be building late game.

This makes your crawlers cost 300. Your opponent can just drop 400 costing vulcans to match them. Very risky card as you can't buy cheap crawlers anymore. Also leveled crawlers give huges amounts of XP to your opponent.

Good mid game if you are using fangs as damage dealers.

Hacker is one of the units that gets a lot better when leveled. This card isn't a path for you to move into hacker. It's only good if hacker is good in the board state.

Very strong if marksmen fit the board state. Marksmen are one of the units that benefit a lot from levels because of elite marksman technology.

Mustang is one of the best units in the game right now. That's why this card is strong as mustangs have so much utility.

Can be good if you have a giant or a rhino problem.

Very strong card. A Rhino level 3 is a powerhouse that requires an immediate answer.

Moving this heavy into Sledgehammer is not smart in most cases.

Not useful usually.

Not good because the anti-missile device works the same vs lev 1 stormcaller and lev 3 stormcaller. You really don't even want to upgrade storms in this metagame.

Wasps are countered too easily to be this heavily invested into them.

This card makes your arclight very strong.

Always a good card if you already have marksmen. Sometimes you want to go into marksmen if you see this card (depends a lot on your play style).

If you are already building backline phoenixes this is good. In my opinion, it's not the correct way to play the unit so that's why I don't like this card as I think the range is not as relevant. It is very cheap and range is never a bad thing, though.

If you already have sledges and the range upgrade available for them, this card will give some interesting strategy options. I wouldn't go into sledges just for this card though.

It can be good vs marksmen for example, but usually you don't need range with stormcallers. Somtimes good with launcher overload so you don't need to tech the range with it.

Vulcan is one of the stronger units in this game and the effect of this card is very good.

Very strong when the enemy is pushing near your base. Just get charged shot on your arclights and they will act as tanks that kill everything.

In about 80% of the situations with this card, you can just go hacker frontline with barrier.

Sometimes this card is bait because the range is really important to mustangs. Versus fangs for example, you don't want to go this. The biggest advantage is that mustangs will survive fire a lot longer.

Good effect if it fits your plan. If I see this, I have no desire to switch into overlords if I wasn't planning on doing it anyway.

Ok but not amazing as the cost increase is a lot and it doesn't affect barrier tech or fang summoning.

Very niche card. It's very strong in melting point vs melting point battles because of the range. If you can see the game going in that direction, this is a very strong pick up.

The biggest gain on this card is the range upgrade. It's usually just not worth it because every overlord will cost 100 more.

It makes your Phoenixes a lot tankier. It's almost always bad, but there are situations like vs fangs, mustangs or wasps it could be useful.

If sledges are good on the board state, this card is very good. It is seldom the case though, as the true power of sledges is in the early game, where giants are not yet unlocked. And if you get this early game, you lose deployments because of the high price.

The range buff is quite good. You can't get this card if either player has steel balls on the field, so usually this card comes too late and you don't want to go into steel balls anymore. The effect is very good for the price if you are going to build steel balls this turn anyway. While I rate it this low, if you get this early enough and the board is right for steel balls, this is very good.

Not a good card.

You can for sure go carry wasp with this, but you need right techs for it. It also makes overlord mothership to spawn improved wasps.

Very good card. Arclights are one of those units that become a power house when highly leveled. Carry arclight is certainly a good option with this card, but don't get too excited if the board is not suitable for them.

It's a very good card if you are deep in Marksmen. You shouldn't be deep in Marksmen so that's why I rate it low.

Depending on the situation and your starting specialist, this can be very good. Fortress' have barrier + fang summoning which makes multiple fortresses very strong.

You don't want to go too early into mass produced overlords. Later if you have a solid frontline, mass producing overlords can end the game really fast. Couple problem with this card is that they die very rapidly to Fortress anti-missile barrage and missile device specialist sentry missiles.

Situationally strong card. You can play phoenixes with so many different ways with this card. Flank and push with quantum reassembly, use them as backline snipers or just mass them with charged shot behind your frontline.

One of the best cards of elite specialist. On other specialists, it's situationally strong. Mass produced rhino is a strong flanker and pusher that you can turn into a bomb with final blitz later on.

Very strong card if you get this early (round 2-3). Using sledgehammers as your cheap frontline will open up many strategies.

Depending on the board state, this can be very good or very bad. Good for early jump drive shenanigans and later on good if enemy doesn't have mustangs or multiple fangs.

I think this is the worst card in the game. The idea is probably that is can be good with whirlwind rhinos, as they clear chaff really fast and then they would have lots of damage to kill enemy giants. But that's a theory that doesn't work in practice.

It's dangerous to mass arclight if your enemy knows what to do. However, if you don't have any and it's early and you need to counter some crawlers, getting even 3 of them gives you good economy with this card.

If I have a crawler I want to upgrade this turn, it has already paid it self back. This is so much economy that when I see this card, I wanna go a little bit deeper into crawler. Leveling them for free early game gives you the option to sell them for profit later.

It's very good economy but it comes slowly. You can't build too many marksmen too early as the enemy just runs you over.

Mustang is a strong unit and if it looks good on the board state you can build 4-5 of them, so a lot of supply value.

Very solid card. If you are pushing with steel balls, it's great economy. If you are doing something else, you can use the cheaper steel balls as front line and upgrade mechanical division for them.

Very strong unit to mass if the situation is right. 6 stormcallers in a comp is totally acceptable.

I pick this almost every time. Sometimes not with elite or giant specialist. Or when I know I'm going to build expensive units or already have a money sink like intensive training. When you play more, you have a better understanding about your future economy and know when to skip this, but in doubt always pick it.

Very situational but wins you the game on the right spot. "Never" pick this if you don't see giants. I sometimes (very rarely) pick this in advance if my strategy cannot be defeated without giants. Sometimes I pick this vs giant specialist as one unlock for them saves 200 gold and this costs effectively 150 (btw the correct strategy for the giant specialist is to just build giants and not care about the giant hunter but I guess it's hard psychologically). You also need to understand when the game is going to end. There's no point in picking this up too late even if there are 5 giants on the field.

Very strong economy card as it probably gives you back 150 right away.

Not a good card often as a better player thinks about enemy sentry missile placements. Also you don't really want to missile before the last 2-3 rounds. One good use for this card is that now the missiles actually deal good damage to shields. You can force something like an incendiary bomb through by destroying the shield with multiple missiles.

It's so expensive I feel bad every time I need to pick this up. It's a must have on some types of boards (f.e. the "sniper war" board state or mustang vs mustang.)

It's good but not as good as it seems as the game has a lot of overkill and the round outcomes are highly dependant on a certain part of the board where one unit counters another.

It's good but not as good as it seems as the game has a lot of overkill and the round outcomes are highly dependant on a certain part of the board where one unit counters another.

Crazy as giant specialist. Very good on others as well. There's a big benefit in massing giants; barriers and summoning techs.

Works only on the shields you buy, not barrier techs. You can even start using round 2 or round 3 shields with this as they just won't die.

Never pick this "for the future". It's very strong if you have lots of cooldowns or just one strong one; f.e. intensive training. I rate it quite low, because the situations where this is the correct pick are rare.

Must pick with any kind of rush strategy. Sometimes good in defensive formation against stormcallers.

Very strong as the deployment delay is often brutal. This showing up will rise your enemy's suspicion of flanks.

Starts profiting in 2 rounds. Always pick this instead of skipping. But there are better cards than this for sure.

Not as strong as it seems at first glance. But it is good. You need to buy 2 technologies to break even. Usually this takes 2-3 rounds.

Risky. Late game card that takes 3 rounds to profit. It puts a lot of pressure to end the game if one player picks this and the other does not. I pick this up if the battles are very even and there aren't much damage (giants) on board. I sometimes pick it also if i'm 5% hp and my enemy is 100% if it seems it is the only thing that will make me win the game if I somehow survive the next 2 turns. If you have hard time to decide if this is worth, usually very good round 4, ok on round 5, round 6+ don't pick.