With the newest update to DrugWars, a feature teased for several weeks has finally arrived: every unit in the game now has a special, unique ability. Along with that come some changes for units that already had those abilities, and a re-tooling of the battle system itself so the units can use those abilities. There's a crap-ton of new powers, abilities, and strategies to unpack, so I'm going to attempt to do just that. Keep in mind that DrugWars is in early access, subject to change at any time, and the unit strategies and information presented here could be obsoleted, updated, patched, altered, or removed at any time. All I can promise is that, at the time of this writing, it's as accurate as I could make it.

Let's run down the line and clarify what each unit does and does not do based on this massive overhaul!

New Battle Simulator

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The last couple of updates to the battle engine have come with a change to the battle simulator, and this extensive update is no exception. Even if you don't understand the 'how' or the 'why' of a given battle's results, you can rest assured the simulator represents the game's internal logic for calculating the result of any given attack or defense. You can simulate attacks on opponents you're hoping to plunder to see what it will take to overrun their defenses, or you can simulate a defensive loss you suffered to see exactly why things went down as they did.

This is the new simulator. You can find it linked from the 'Battles' tab in the game itself, but if you want quick access to it, there's the link you need. Just plug in the values for your various units, hit submit, and see the results for yourself. Whether you're a new player, or you're an experienced veteran who's used to the old battle system, this is a must for understanding exactly what will happen once you commit your troops to an attack. When in doubt, simulate. This cannot be stressed enough.

Also, there appears to be a glitch in the simulator code that sometimes doesn't take a unit's special abilities into account, even when it should, so refresh before each simulated battle to make sure you're getting proper results.

I say again:

REFRESH THE SIMULATOR PRIOR TO EACH SIMULATION!

Clear?

Good.

Major Battle System Rules Changes

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Before we get into the changes with the actual units themselves, there are some basic changes made to the system itself that are important to know before you start launching attacks on your fellow drug lords. The biggest has to do with the difference between Melee and Ranged attackers, and the fact that dead units no longer hit back.

In previous versions of the game, whether an attacker was 'Ranged' or 'Melee' was a cosmetic difference. If you threw 20 bouncers against 20 snipers, both sides hit one another regardless of the snipers having firearms. All that went out the window with this new update. Now (with two critical exceptions we'll look at in the unit info later), ranged attackers do their damage before melee attackers, and units that are killed are killed instantly. So under the old system, our sample of 20 bouncers would get shot by the 20 snipers, then barrel through anyway and kill a number of the snipers despite having huge holes blown in them.

No more. Now, if you simulate a battle between 20 bouncers and 20 snipers, you'll see that in round one, the snipers each fire off one shot, which is enough to drop one target. Twenty bouncers die before they even get to throw a punch, and the side with the snipers (regardless of whether it's defending or attacking) wins the battle with zero casualties. This, obviously, is as it should be since your ranged units should be taking out melee enemies early. In addition, melee units killed by ranged units don't get to make an attack, they're just pulled out of the battle immediately. The idea of overpowering heavily-defended opponents with a bunch of Rowdies and Bouncers regardless of their defensive units is now almost impossible unless you're willing to invest in multiple thousands of units...in which case, you'll lose far more in resources than you're likely to gain in plunder. It may still be a valid tactic to rip up a rival gang with which you are at war, just be aware that, in the long-term, this is a losing strategy unless you are producing considerably more resources than your target.

Finally, battles now last for six rounds as opposed to five. The increase in round length is to account for the 'first strike' capability of ranged units, allowing them to shoot melee attackers before they get within punching range.

Unit Talk

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Enough prattling on. This is what you came here to see, so let's get right down to business. Every unit, every ability, everything you need to know to plan your next assault or beef up your defenses.

The current targeting priority from highest to lowest has been updated as follows:

Rowdy, Super Bouncers, Knifers, Big Mama, Ninja, Gunman, Sniper, Hitman, Bazooka Guy, Mercenary.

In other words, your units will focus on killing Rowdies over Bouncers, Bouncers over Knifers, Knifers over Big Mama, and so on, unless something in their programming makes them behave otherwise. These exceptions will be noted under the individual unit comments below.

The Hobo and the Spy have no targeting priority because neither unit will 'defend' against an incoming attack. They are both offensive-only units, and as such will not protect your supplies even if they're the last units standing.

Hobo

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You already know this unit and its special ability, since both were introduced during the last update. While it seems like nothing has changed, the Hobo has been retooled to make them more useful than they were before. Nothing has changed, stat-wise, for the Hobo: he still hits for 2 damage, has zero defense, and dies after the first round of combat as his 'Kamikaze' special indicates.

What has changed for the Hobo is his unit priority. The Hobo, despite being a melee attacker, throws his punch before any other unit has a chance to counter-attack. These guys perform the ultimate, literal bum rush. As soon as they hit, they're removed from combat and counted as a fatality because they have zero health, but this means it's impossible to prevent Hobos from dealing their damage no matter how many ranged defenders you employ. That's the bad news.

The good news is that Hobos target the weakest members of your defense first, so a massive wave of them will start on your Rowdies and work their way up the priority list, so as long as you have plenty of lower-tiered units on your payroll, you should be relatively safe from all but the most ostentatious Hobo Wave tactics.

The other good news? Hobos are now classified as offensive-only units, meaning they won't participate in defensive battles. Now you can recruit them by the hundreds without worrying that someone sending a Spy to peep on you will instantly cost you tens of thousands of lost alcohol revenue. They won't stop an incoming attacker, but having a horde of them in reserve, ready to hurl themselves en masse in revenge, may make a potential threat pick on someone with less alcohol than sense. Given how long it takes to recruit a bunch of them now, this is a welcome change. Feel free to horde Hobos.

Rowdy

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The Rowdy's skill is the first one that really needs explaining. Basically, while Rowdies are still recruited as individuals, they now act in teams, with each team consisting of 4 Rowdies (or fewer than 4 if the total number involved in combat isn't evenly divisible by 4 -- sending 7 Rowdies at a target, for instance, will actually send one group of four, and one group of three). These bands of Rowdies attack and defend as though they were single units, so if you send 8 Rowdies to attack, instead of hitting eight separate targets for two damage apiece like before, they'll now hit two separate targets for eight damage apiece. If you don't understand the breakdown, play around with them in the simulator and you'll see what I mean.

The downside to this is that Rowdies now take damage as a group too. In the old battle system, for instance, 8 Rowdies could team up and overpower a single Ninja, because she could only kill one at a time when they dogpiled on her, and she had only two turns to do so. Now, a single Ninja will kill all 8 Rowdies without dying, because she can slay four of them every round while surviving the 16 damage they dish out due to her high health.

As a side note, a group of Rowdies shrugs off damage that isn't enough to kill a single Rowdy between rounds. I'm not sure if this is intentional, or a glitch, but if a group of 4 Rowdies takes 5 damage (because they ran into a Bouncer, for instance), two Rowdies will die and the other two remain unscathed with 2 hit points each according to the simulator.

This change nerfs Rowdies, making them less dependable on offense, and turning them into cannon fodder (which is what they were created to be in the first place). A wave of Rowdies now needs to be four times as large as before to obtain similar results. Hope you upgraded your weapon-making capacities if you're planning on recruiting a bunch of them.

The upside is that Rowdies make great blockers, because Hobos kill Rowdies on a one-for-one basis. At the bare minimum, an attacker needs to send in enough Hobos to match your Rowdy numbers if they're going to have any impact at all. Recruit a ton of these guys and let them lounge around in your base as a bulwark against surprise Hobo Waves. Ranged attackers, on the other hand, will eat them alive.

Super Bouncer

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Super Bouncers got a minor stat adjustment with this update, dropping to 5 attack instead of 6 like before, making them hit not quite so hard, but maintaining their 12 defense. It now takes three Bouncers, instead of two, to overpower a single enemy Bouncer, but while the unit took a cut in strength, it got a small boost to staying power thanks to 'Shield'.

The first time a Bouncer takes damage in a fight, he 'shrugs off' two points of it, giving him an effective health of 14 instead of 12. This means if you want to drop a Bouncer in one round with minimal losses, you need to plan for that accordingly (7 Rowdies, 3 Knifers, 3 Bouncers, etc...). Sadly for Bouncers, even with their 'Shield' ability, every ranged attacker save for the Bazooka Guy causes enough damage at one time to knock them out in one hit. Not even the best bodybuilder can shrug off hot lead.

Big Mama

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The Big Mama is now a slightly bigger headache. Her attack and defense stats remain unchanged, but she now comes equipped with a first-aid kit. This sounds more awesome than it actually is, but it's still fun to see in action.

Unlike the Bouncer, who uses his skill as soon as he takes damage, the Big Mama doesn't respond to hits with healing. Rather she waits until the beginning of the next round, and if there is at least one unit on your side that has taken damage but hasn't been killed, Big Mama slaps a bandage on the boo-boo, gives it a kiss, and sends that unit back into the field with 3 more health than he came home with. Each Big Mama carries 3 applications of bandages in her health kit, but can only use one application on a unit per round, so the longer the fight goes, the more healing she doles out. Multiple Big Mama units can band together to heal one single unit, and in fact this is how the game's logic is coded, so it's possible for multiple Mamas to heal the same target. If you want to see this in action in the simulator, set 18 Knifers to attack a group of 10 Big Mamas, and scroll down to the start of round two to watch all ten Mamas give 30 health back to a single Big Mama. Mama won't waste health packs, so if you have five capable of healing but only need two applications to bring a unit up to full, the other three Mamas will focus on other targets or hold their kits in reserve until they're needed.

The downside to this is that Big Mama can't resurrect the dead, she can only assist the wounded. This means that in especially large and brutal combats, she won't be saving your front-line soldiers like Bouncers or Knifers, but she may be able to keep other Mamas, Mercenaries, or Ninjas on their feet. She's also got to survive to the start of the next round in order to heal your guys up, but that's sometimes easier said than done. As the unit with the largest health reserve in the game, more often than not she'll be healing herself or others of her ilk as opposed to front-line combatants. Three points may not seem like much, but get enough of them working together and they can dump several dozen hit points into one unit.

Knifer

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The Knifer's the next unit who got an attribute adjustment...and a fairly major one at that, going from 12 Attack and 6 Defense to 6 Attack and 5 Defense, but still costing the same in terms of resources. Don't let that fool you, though...the Knifer is now the single deadliest unit in the game, and if he hadn't been chopped down, there would have been chaos in the streets.

His unique ability text makes no sense. What is "Tasty Nasty" supposed to mean? The line that comes after tries to explain that he doesn't obey the rules, even ones revolving around unit priority, but it's impossible to tease out what exactly that means. Fortunately, all you have to do is dump some Knifers into the simulator and you'll see the answer right away: the Knifers, just like the Hobos, have 'First Strike' capability, dealing damage before ranged attackers can pick them off (ranged attackers still get to shoot even if the Knifers kill them, they just can't shoot the Knifers when they're sneaking in to prevent damage). That's just the tip of the blade though. The true destructive power of the Knifer revolves around the fact they attack targets in reverse priority.

Standard target priority, as listed above, means you start with Rowdies, then move on to Bouncers, and so on up until you reach the ranged units like the Sniper, Bazooka Guy, and Mercenary. But not the Knifer. No, no...he moves through the shadows, steals into the back ranks, and starts his slice-and-dice with your opponent's Mercenaries, then moves on to Bazooka Guys, then Hitmen, then Snipers, and so forth.

You can see why they had to be neutered now, right?

Regardless of losing their point of defense and half their attack power, Knifers are now the most potent and devastating unit in the game. On offense, they go straight for the throats of the higher-powered, more expensive targets which usually hide behind several layers of meat shields. On defense, they serve the same function, gutting ranged units with glee and ignoring the low-tier meat shields, and if your antagonist thinks he'll outwit them by using only melee units, any melee unit killed by Knifers dies before it gets to deal damage in response.

Holy hell, these guys are brutal.

Gunman

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The Gunman has also had an attribute adjustment: his original 25 attack has dropped to 16, but his defense has remained steady at 12. Otherwise, as a ranged attacker, he gets priority against every melee striker except for Hobos and Knifers, and he's still capable of killing every melee unit except for the Ninja or the Big Mama with a single shot, so this isn't as big a loss as it might seem. In fact, with the way Rowdies are handled, he's now even deadlier than he was, since he'll pick them off four at a time if they come at him.

The Gunman's unique ability is "Accurate Hit", and the text explains what it does, but not the specifics. In the simulator, however, we can see exactly what happens when it is used: against melee targets, he scores an extra 2 points of bonus damage on top of the 16 he already delivers, for a total of 18 damage. Two points may not seem like much, but it makes him deadlier against Big Mamas, almost negating their 3-point heal ability. The simulator also shows an interesting side-effect when fighting Ninjas: they can dodge the 16 points of standard damage, but not the 2 points of bonus damage, so no matter how great their reflexes are, they can't avoid getting grazed. I'm not sure if this is intended, or just a flaw in the damage routine coding, but either way it's worth knowing.

Spy

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The Spy remains virtually unchanged from his previous incarnation, with one notable exception: like the Hobo, he no longer defends against an enemy attack even if he's the only unit left at your headquarters. His sole purpose is to deliver intel reports on your target without doing any damage, and with 1 health he can't survive a run-in with any other unit.

Be aware that he's the only unit with a cost in Drugs, so recruit with care. But also keep in mind that it takes several minutes to add a single Spy to your roster; buy in bulk so you can send out multiple intelligence-gathering missions at the same time!

Sniper

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The Sniper is the first unit where the attack and defense information is actually wrong. While the game says the Sniper has an attack of 30 (down ten points from his original 40), this number is misleading. Due to the calculations used for his special skill, the Sniper never actually deals 30 points of damage to anybody. Instead, he starts out hitting for 23 points, but gets more and more accurate as the rounds accumulate. Here's how this breaks down:

On round 1, a Sniper hits a single target for 23 points of damage: less than the 30 you'd expect, but still strong enough to bring down most units with a single hit. Assuming the Sniper survives the round, he gets deadlier.
On round 2, he hits for 45 damage.
On round 3, he hits for 68 damage.
On round 4, he hits for 90 damage.
On round 5, he hits for 113 damage.
On round 6, his final, lethal round deals 135 damage.

While this seems like a powerful skill, it actually doesn't make Snipers all that much more effective except in large-scale, sprawling battles involving hundreds or even thousands of units. By the time he reaches round 2, he can already one-hit-kill every unit in the game except for the Big Mama and the Mercenary, but his unit target priority means that he'll almost always focus his crosshairs on weaker units.

Cost-wise, even with the addition of the Sniper's skill and the nerfing of the Gunman's attack power, the Gunman is still a better option under almost every circumstance. Snipers are nice to have for intimidation value, but unless the game's creators do something major (like giving them a 'long range' attack that allows them to hit Knifers before they can reach the front lines), they're still one of the worst units you can spend money on. If the developers allowed them to shoot first, and made them defensive-only units who couldn't participate in an attack, this would go a long way towards balancing them against the Gunman and give you a reason to hire them.

Hitman

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Once again, the attribute information for the Hitman is just wrong. The game says his attack power is 30, but this isn't correct. His "Multiple Hit" skill allows him to go John Woo on an enemy, double-fisting his pistols and squeezing off two attacks per round.

In the simulator, the Hitman attacks twice in a row, and each attack delivers 8 damage; therefore, the Hitman doesn't have an attack power of 30, but rather an attack power of (8 + 8), or 16. Believe it or not, despite dealing less total damage, the ability to attack twice turns the Hitman into a brutal powerhouse, well worth his 10,000 weapon cost. You get two attacks per round, with each attack enough to murder two group of 4 Rowdies.

It should be noted that, like the Bazooka Guy's "Splash" skill, the Hitman hits two separate targets with his guns--he doesn't focus his attention on one single target until it's dead, so if two Bouncers come at him, he'll cripple them both for 8 points each instead of doing 16 damage to one and killing him. That said, if you have other ranged attackers, the Hitman's attack priority means that he'll mop up pretty much anything the other ranged guys hit but didn't kill. Take advantage of this, and add some to your army today.

Ninja

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Ninja were already pretty nasty, but now they're downright brutal. Unfortunately it looks like their battle ability is bugged, as in the simulator they only dodge one killing blow, not the two we were promised. The simulator shows the dodge happen a second time, but doesn't take it into account. To see this in action, pit 1 Mercenary against 1 Ninja, and watch her die to the second Merc attack despite activating her Dodge skill again. Despite this, their capacity to shrug off lethal blows combined with their high unit priority means they are one of the hardiest units in the game, and with an attack power of 50, anything which survives a single Ninja attack will be in no condition to do so the next round.

Once their Dodge is coded properly, Ninjas will be horrifyingly powerful as their speed and dodge will allow them to survive long enough to get close to ranged attackers and decapitate them, while soaking up attacks that would slaughter lesser units multiple times over. Right now, for a total of 14,000 resources, you effectively get two units--if they're fixed to dodge twice instead of just once, Ninjas will become the best value in the game relative to their costs as they'll count as 3 units apiece for all the damage they can ignore and mayhem they will cause.

Bazooka Guy

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"You just covered the Bazooka Guy in your last post...do you really need to cover him again?"

Yes, because while he works similar to his prior incarnation, he's been altered slightly. Also, like the Sniper and the Hitman, his attribute numbers are flat-out wrong, despite having been revised down to 91 Attack from his previous level of 145. "Splash" has been changed so that it now affects six targets instead of five, but it's also seen its damage decreased significantly. Where the old Bazooka Guy hit for 29 points across five attackers, his new incarnation hits for 11 damage across six attackers. If his attack value was correct, he'd be hitting for roughly 15 damage (91 / 6) per target. As it is, he's now hitting for (11 x 6) damage, for a total of 66 damage.

What's more, the Bazooka Guy only has a limited supply of rockets. After round 4, assuming he's still in the fight, he won't have any shells to fire and instead becomes a bullet sponge. At least he still has his 25 health.

Basically, the Bazooka Guy's job is still crowd control, he's just not as good at it as he used to be. Sure, he can take out multiple packs of Rowdies or Knifers, but it takes him two rounds to chew through a single Bouncer thanks to his reduced damage. What's more, his low attack priority means the Gunman, Sniper, and Hitman all act before he does. Chances are, they'll obliterate most of the weenies, leaving the Bazooka Guy splashing damage across units he can no longer kill with one shot. Multiple Bazooka Guys will, of course, create a devastating wake of carnage that will chew through multiple units, so the Bazooka Guy, in effect, gets more powerful the more of them you recruit (in Magic the Gathering terms, they're the Plague Rats of DrugWars). Even if you never plan to attack another player, having them hanging around your headquarters is a sure way to deter large-scale assaults.

Mercenary

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At first glance, the Mercenary's "Bulletproof" skill doesn't seem all that impressive. They already have 75 defense, so driving that total down to zero is already hard enough. The only unit which can one-shot a Mercenary is another Mercenary, and that's a situation that should never happen if you've planned your attack or fortified your defenses well. With "Bulletproof", a Mercenary regains a whopping 25 health the first time he's hit with an attack that would reduce him to 0 health or less--this gives him an effective defense value of 100? Overkill much?

Not in the slightest. In fact, without this upgrade, Mercenaries would rank among the worst units you could recruit based on their cost in resources, thanks to the Knifer's ability to both first-strike and use reverse-target priority. In other words, your Mercenary units don't fear other Mercenaries...they fear the knife-wielding bastards who skulk through the shadows looking to turn them into pincushions.

While "Bulletproof" won't immunize them against Knifer attacks, it does mean an aggressor will have to deploy a minimum of 17 Knifers per Mercenary they want to kill (100 / 6 = 16.66, rounded up to 17), as opposed to the 13 it would otherwise take. Those seventeen Knifers costs 51,000 weapons and 13, 600 alcohol to train, while a single Merc can be yours for only 400 more alcohol and 32,000 fewer weapons. Mercenaries were 'scare/intimidation' units under the old system, but now you're essentially buying Mercenaries to keep Knifers from hollowing out your Bazooka Guys, so don't neglect them.

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So, there you have it, Drug Warriors! The low-down on every skill upgrade and unit update from the latest patch. If you found this helpful, consider an upvote or a re-steem and leave me a comment to let me know what I can improve. Otherwise, I and the rest of the Legion of Doom / Comics Code Authority will see you in the streets (where we'll sell you the greatest drug of all: 90's comic books)!

Peace, love, and funny books, y'all.