Strategy Guide: The Goblins

The small folk’ with the poisonous darts


Note: This isn’t written to the experts, but to the newbies

Initial Comments:

Most people say that the Goblins, like the Halflings aren’t a good beginner race,  that you should try to play one of the major races before you start with the minor. Thats true, but i find Goblins a good beginner race, because you’ll learn how to win with smaller measures, and thats really neccesary when playing against human players.

Diplomacy:

The Goblins dont have the diplomacy bonus neutrality gives, but they have nice relationships with the evil races, which can give the Goblins a nice advantage in the beginning(So you dont need to migrate towns etc to be friends with any of the Evil races).

Units:

The Goblins have really weak units, but their Darter, Wyvern and Karagh are nice; But almost nothing else. So you’ll need a lot of strategy to win a game.


Lv1 Units


The Goblin Darter

The Goblin Darter is a real nice unit, it is a slinger infused with poison dmg, though it get one shot less, the darter poisons the enemy, and when the enemy is poisoned he is a hell lot weaker

The Goblin Spearman

The Goblin Spearman is the average Lvl1 soldier, first strike makes up for 1 less dmg. Its nice against cavalry, and it can stand against strong Lvl1 units.

The Goblin Bomber

This is useless pile of junk, it takes two of them to breach a wooden wall, and this one needs installing, which the battering ram doesnt. If you want to breach walls, build rams instead.


Lvl2 Units


The Goblin Shaman

This is the average shaman, it has the usual goblin stats and 1 more resistance, so it isnt completely useless. Healing is extremly needed with the goblins, as their hp is low they need healing after the first hit.

The Goblin Wolf Rider 

Pretty much the ordinary cavalry unit, but the Wolf Rider only has 2 resistance and 7 hp, so its very fragile, and almost only useful when hunting down elves in forests.


Lvl3 Units


The Troll

The Troll is a big burly Lvl3 unit, it has really heavy dmg, 12 Hp and regeneration. But 12 hp isnt much. So if you get the chance, buy some Warlords, or Dark Elf Executioners.

The Goblin Big Beetle

The Goblin Big Beetle is the best tunneler there is, it has nice Mp and Wallcrushing, it also has good hp and poison strike. This unit is very useful and strong, however, it can be stopped by a small bunch of lvl1 units.

The Goblin Wyvern Rider

The Goblin Wyvern Rider is a nice flyer, i has almost the same stats as the halfling eagle, but it has poison strike and protection, rendering it a good Lvl1/2 unit killer, not just an explorer.


Lvl4 Unit


The Karagh

The Karagh is a lethal unit, at least when underground, there it has a chance to kill a unit on the first round, 44 Mp + Cave Crawling rocks! It has 8 dmg, with charge that increases to 10, high hp and resistance makes up for low def.


Strategies:


The Goblin Rush:

The Goblin rush isnt much, just create lots of Goblin Darters; They’re the only good Lvl1 unit. As the goblins are fast only in caves, this strategy isnt much of use on the surface.

The Goblin Flyer Raid

The Goblin flyer raid is that you create lots of wyvern riders, and then just go out and attack cities, and then raze them, so your enemy cant use them. Buy the towns you can buy and raze the rest.


Conclusion:

The Goblins aren’t powerful  race at all, however they host one of the better Lvl3 flyers in the game, and not to forget, the powerful Karagh. But they lack the brute strength the Orcs(for example) have on lvl 1, 2 and 3.

Mostly they’re a weak race, but they do have some firepower at lvl 1 and 4, and in the Wyvern rider.


This article was written by Silver_Dragon, with the help of the gamers at the AoWHeaven forum.