Mechabellum Tarantula Guide
All units Tarantula
Tarantula
Used against
Fang
Crawler
Mustang
Wasp
Countered by
Fortress
Hacker
Marksman
Melting Point
Overlord
Phoenix
Rhino
Sabertooth
Scorpion
Sandworm
Steel Ball
War Factory
Stormcaller
How to play Tarantula
The Tarantula has a couple of things going for it. It's very tanky and besides clearing chaff very well early game, it deals ok damage against Sledgehammers and Arclights especially. So look to use this unit against a board that is heavy in chaff and in addition to that has arcs or sledges. The tarantula needs to be a frontliner because you need to use the high amount of health to make it worth the price.
It's not a unit you want to commit into. You want to never build more of them and use them as a solid early game without teching them.
But if you really want to play this unit, do a Tarantula push by surrounding the enemy base with them. Go spider mine first.
Due to the cheap armor technology it is also a very nice answer to mustang heavy boards.
Mechabellum Tarantula counter
In early game, look how you could get into phoenix early and you have no trouble dealing with the Tarantula. Any kind of wasp play also forces the Tarantula player to deploy units he really doesn't want to deploy.
The actual Tarantula is easy to deal with but the problem comes with the spider mines since it will distract all your heavy hitters. Vulcan + air units is a good way to deal with this. If the enemy is going super heavy into the Tarantula, going hackers with multihack will also win you the game.
If you can get into Fortress early, that's good as well since the Tarantulas lack the damage to kill them.
Tarantula Builds
Listed below are all some highlighted Tarantula builds.
Surrey's Tarantula build
I don't believe in this unit at all. I mostly use it with armor technology against either mustangs or a vulcan. If the enemy has a very weak start against Tarantulas I might push with them heavily teching spider mines first and range second.
Tarantula Technologies
Listed below are all available technologies for Tarantula, their viability and how to use them.
High-Explosive Ammo
Increases splash damage range by 5m, but reduces ATK by 30%
150
Cheap and good chaff clear technology. Helps a lot against both crawlers and fangs and especially against loose crawlers and shielded fangs. Usually I prefer only one technology on my Tarantulas and this is never it.
Anti-Aircraft Ammunition
Can be used against aerial units
150
I like this a lot. It's not usually good but I often play the tarantulas with jump drive wasps (forcing enemy into mustang against armored tarantulas) and sometimes the enemy counters my wasps with his own Wasps and this becomes nice.
Field Maintenance
Increases HP by 30%, automatically restores 4.5% Max HP per second upon taking damage
300
One of the more strong technologies of the Tarantula. I think the main purpose of this unit is to tank. if you get a couple of lvl 2 tarantulas early game, this technology will make them unkillabel and the enemy needs to deploy something very expensive to counter them next turn. It's risky to use since a heavy hitter will kill the Tarantula no matter if you have the FM or not. So you need to pay a lot of attention to the enemy composition and what he can do next turn to evaluate if this is good.
Armor-Piercing Bullets
Increases ATK by 50%
200
A cheap damage technology. Very nice when paired with mechanical rage. The problem here is that the main role of the tarantula is to clear chaff and the damage is not needed. Again a carry Tarantula technology and that's not where you want to be.
Mechanical Rage
Increases the movement speed of units by 4m/s and reduces attack interval by 0.2s
400
Expensive technology that allows the Tarantulas to connect faster due to the movement speed and to deal more damage. Having the attack interval reduced increases chaff clear by a lot. Good technology for the carry tarantula, but this is not usually the strategy you want to be in.
Spider Mine
Fires 2 Spider Mines with 750 HP every 15 seconds. The Spider Mines will charge at the enemy and self-destruct, dealing 4,500 damage to all units within 9m radius. Spider Mine's attributes enhance with Tarantula's level, HP increased by 750 and damage increased by 4,500 per unit rank increased.
300
The best technology for the Tarantula. If you commit into them, this is the power spike technology. It clears crawlers, medium sized units and enemy towers even. It will provide a lot of chaff for the Tarantulas because the mines will take all the heavy hits.
Range Enhancement
Increases attack range by 40m
300
Range techs are usually very strong but with the Tarantula, you need to make use of it's high hp pool. So you want it to walk forward and tank damage. Might be useful later in the game when all your chaff clear is dependent on the Tarantula and they start dying to big targets way too fast.
Armor Enhancement
The effect increases with unit level, reducing damage received by 60 per level. Additionally, increases HP by 35%.
200
Because it is so cheap with the Tarantula, the armor is a good niche tech to punish some mustang heavy boards.
