Mechabellum Crawler Guide
All units Crawler
Crawler
Used against
Fang
Hacker
Marksman
Melting Point
Steel Ball
Stormcaller
Sabertooth
Scorpion
Countered by
Arclight
Vulcan
Rhino
Wraith
Sledgehammer
Fire Badger
Typhoon
Tarantula
How to play Crawler
The crawler is the most versatile unit in the game. They are always useful as well placed crawlers will win you early game and packs of crawlers distract enemies in late game for a long time.
After the enemy has developed good counters for your crawlers, you can protect most of them by placing tanky units in the line of fire before them. This way enemy Vulcans or what not will lock onto your Sledges or Steel Balls and the crawlers will roam free once again.
They are a very aggressive unit that do well in flanks. And even back deployed crawlers are so fast they are in time for battle even if you are the one pushing.
Crawlers are easy to drip feed into the battle to protect your higher value units because of their high movement speed.
Their usual use case is just to take enemy fire and pull key enemy units away from certain positions. But they are dangerous with technologies. You can poke around the enemy defenses a bit with cheap crawlers and if you see an opening you can do 2 technologies for them in a single turn to completely surprise them.
Some information about crawler 1v1:
- lvl 2 crawler always beats a lvl 1 crawler with one technology
- If all the crawlers are lvl 1, then it's Impact Drill > Replicate > Mechanical Rage (so Impact drill will beat everything)
Mechabellum Crawler counter
The normal counter for early game crawlers is just matching them with Arclights. If the enemy starts developing more of them or teching them, the best option to go for is the Wraith, because it has multiple targets so the enemy cannot block the Wraith damage - it will always clear the crawlers. Other good options include Fire Badgers, Typhoons, Whirlwind Rhinos, Vulcans or any kind of fire
Crawlers are hard to counter as it's not about buying the right counter but positioning everything correctly. One trick is to place a forward positioned fang in front of your Vulcan so all the enemy crawlers will run to that position.
If they have replicate, sell your isolated units so they can't be farmed.
Crawler Builds
Listed below are all some highlighted Crawler builds.
Surrey's Crawler build
This is the best build but if you want to use acid I would cut mechanical rage. Usually I use my crawlers without any technologies. Sometimes I commit to the Replicate if the enemy is giving me free food on the map for me to replicate on. After the replicate I go into Impact drill and finally mechanical rage but only if the enemy responds very poorly against the crawlers threat or is occupied with something else that I am doing. If I use Subterranean Blitz it's the only technology I go for. It's sometimes good vs fire and weak clear units like mustangs and fangs.
Crawler Technologies
Listed below are all available technologies for Crawler, their viability and how to use them.
Acidic Explosion
Destroyed Crawlers leave acidic liquid on the ground in a radius of 9m. Units within the acidic liquid lose 6% HP per second and have their DEF reduced
200
It's a good technology against giant units like fortress and war factory. However, it's a tricky situation to have so many deployments available late game to put the acid in place. It's very iffy response and even if it works for one turn, the photon coating boat will come out next turn. There's also a threat your forward crawlers will get replicated.
Impact Drill
Increases ATK by 125%
200
Good if you need to win replicate wars and the enemy has bigger crawlers. Also good vs leveled up towers. If the enemy has a really serious crawler problem with no good way to answer them, consider this since the crawlers will chop down giants, sledgehammers and everything else that is big.
Mechanical Rage
Increases movement speed of units by 5m/s and reduces attack interval by 0.4s
200
Usually my last technology on the carry crawlers. The damage is crazy paired with Impact Drill and and the movement speed bonus is huge as it helps your crawlers connect faster to the targets and run faster through fire etc.
Replicate
Uses destroyed enemies to create more Crawlers
250
Probably the best technology in the entire game. There's a whole subgame going on where you fight small battles and try to level crawlers in dangerous positions. Can instantly turn the tide of the battle - on the flank or in the main fight. If you know how to use this technology correctly, you will rise in the ranks very fast. Don't tech this before the first round of free unit drops since it's very likely the enemy will get a hard counter.
Subterranean Blitz
Increases movement speed by 3m/s, tunnels underground when there are no enemies within 50m and nullify 50% of damage received, and emerge from beneath the ground and attack upon arriving near the enemy
300
A "shield" technology for the crawlers. You should tech this especially against mustang, fangs and fire. Against everything else, it's still ok. A lot stronger with leveled crawlers. Never go this technology with carry crawlers since it's always better to go another carry tech first.
