For a long time, I've struggled to understand how to play Rovers well. Raiders felt like scouts, scouts felt like raiders, skirmishers work like weak riot but not really, one of their artillery can hit ground units reliably but not really, and their best artillery, impalers, are a very powerful artillery but they sometimes struggle to defeat turrets, and it's hard to understand why.
So, that's why I'm making this unofficial guide that may or may not change over time. The point of this guide is to discuss the "Rover" mechanics.
Offensive and Defensive units.When I started playing rovers, it was hard for me to understand which unit does what kind of job well. Scorchers are raiders, so, they should be good at offense, right? Fencers have to stop to fire. That means they cannot be used on the frontlines, right? And so on.
For me, offensive units are the kinds of units which can be left out in the open, with the units capable of retreating quickly and deal damage unpunished in some cases.
In every game, it is important to pressure your opponent in the early game, so that the opponent couldn't go too greedy. Scorchers, despite being named "raiders," are too slow to easily engage in battles against such light turrets as lotuses, attacking other raiders, and even at fairing against pickets, despite the scorcher's high DPS potential. The best they can do is ride around in groups of one and quickly take out enemy mexes. However, rover's scout "Dart" is times better at doing so, as not only are darts faster and cheaper, but they have better sight range. Make sure to utilize Darts early on to force the enemy to make such light defenses as lotuses.
Now, what scorchers Do shine in is, acting as a mobile riot. You see, if an enemy raider charges at a scorcher, that raider risks to get too close to the scorcher and get heated to death. Therefore, no intelligent player will send their raiders at your scorchers, in a fair scenario. And this can be abused.
Remember defensive fencers? They can be paired up with scorchers to make a threatening army. While the scorchers keep the raiders at bay, a single fencer will punish scouts who get too close for the raider army's enjoyment, as fencers are one of the rare skirmishers who do have the ability to damage raiders, even in low densities. That, and.. fencers make a fine job dealing with lotus turrets you have triggered the opponent to make using darts. Now, you may think here. "Why don't I use rippers and badgers instead, to do the same thing but stronger?" More on that later.
An army that consists of scorchers & fencers will fend off raiders, lotus towers, and even pickets in large quantities and right ratios. The only last threat there is to that army is, riot units. Riot units can be kited by fencers, but if you don't have enough fencers or if riots flank your fencers all lined up, you may need some sick micro to keep your fencers alive. Unfortunately, I have not played rovers enough to know how to deal with something like that, and thus, this is a subject for future consideration/discussions.
Now, you may be thinking. "I have the army to keep my foes at bay, but the enemy just ignores it! He sent an entire army to my base, and I have no way of dealing with it! Oh noes!"
Well, fear not! That is why this guide mentions offensive And defensive units!
The benefit of using units over static turrets for defense is that units are mobile, turrets are not. This mobility allows even for units as slow as rippers to kite some enemy projectiles. It also allows for units to retreat when badly damaged, allowing to avoid unnecessary losses. Turrets are forced to die bravely, should they get overwhelmed. Lastly, if an enemy chooses to make a full-force push turrets, you will have to just observe as the enemy avoids your Beautiful castles. If the enemy makes a full-force push against your defensive units, they will have to suffer the full might of your forces. That being said, turrets still have their utility, but more on that later.
Despite fencers being told that they fair well at defense, they're not. The best they can do is bark at the enemy's army so that the army would go away. Because they have to stop to fire, and when they stop, they cannot move at all for a short period of time, they work kind of like a turret, but with a much lower DPS. Therefore, Fencers are DEFINITELY NOT A GOOD DEFENSIVE UNIT in the rover factory's arsenal, despite the possibility. If you need to defend against masses of riot units to keep your base alive, either use badgers, the anti-unit artillery, to slowly chip away at the enemy's forces, or, if the opponent's army is too tanky for badgers to be efficient, add dominatrixes to your army. Dominatrixes fair well against armored and low-ranged units. In large densities, dominatrixes can also be supported by Aspises and Irises to form a terrifying push, punishing the opponent's ignorance.
However, your bread-and-butter unit for defense will definitely be, the all-famous ripper, who is both cheap
and efficient. Their ripper cannon is great at tearing apart assault units, raider units, other riot units, and the few skirmishers who chose to disturb the Ripper Gangsta. Unfortunately, rippers can be picked off easily when alone by raiders & assault units & others, as their power scales down quickly when they are in the pairs of 1-2. 3 rippers are enough to form a threatening defensive position against many simple pushes, though.
Once you have a terrifying quantity of rippers that scares the crap outa your opponent, you can start building defensive turrets behind your rippers, like lotuses, stardusts, and stingers, to make pushing towards rippers even harder, or even by building faradays on the frontline to fair well even under artillery fire. A good alternative is to make badgers, as badgers make the process of getting to your rippers very tedious for skirmishers and artillery. Then, even if the opponent will get through the badger mess, they'll do so just to face-tank the ripper fodder, paired with dominatrixes if the opponent was foolish enough to build heavy "melee" units for you to steal. The opponent will need one hell of an artillery line to bring down your ripper-badger-domi army.
To be continued...
