Giant Demonic Bat - Stronghold Legends Game Units
| Cost in Gold | 150 |
| Cost in Honour | 15 |
| Recruited From | Sorceror's Tower |
| Ranged Attack | Yes |
| Recruits needed | 1 |
| Requirements | N/A |
| Available Factions | Evil |
Giant Demonic Bats are a special unit in Stronghold Legends, and only available to players who are currently playing as the Evil faction.
They are recuited from The Sorceror's Tower, costing 150 gold and 15 honour. You can find out ways to generate Honour in the game here.
Giant Demonic Bats only have a single attack, which is to hurl themselves at enemy units, in effect killing themselves in the process of damaging or killing enemy units.
When the Giant Demonic Bat launches itself at an enemy unit on the ground, it will scatter the units in a wide area. Any units which are thrust into trees, water or other inpassable terrain will be automatically removed from the map entirely.
Other units will seriously have their health depleted by these attacks. If the Lord is attacked on top of the Keep, then he will be the only unit who is not thrust away.
Frost Giants, Polar Bears and other similarly larged-sized units will not be thrust backwards on the map, although they will still take damage from hits by Giant Demonic Bats. Note that Giant Demonic Bats cannot specifically be ordered to attack any Dragons in the game, although your Giant Demonic Bats can be damaged by fire from Green Dragons and Black Dragons. Ice Dragons have no effect on Giant Demonic Bats.
They also cannot specifically be ordered to attack White Witches or other Giant Demonic Bats either, however you can place the bats onto 'aggressive' mode, which will trigger them to attack any unit, either ground or aerial, which gets close enoguh to them, including White Witches, Dragons and other enemy Giant Demonic Bats as well. Although it should be stated they do virtually zero damage to Dragons.
Giant Demonic Bats are also useful for clearing units off towers and gatehouses, particularly the higher towers that most units cannot reach. They can also take out Dragon Harpoons as well, although the Dragon Harpoon can also attack your Giant Demonic Bats as well, often resulting in many of them being killed before they reach the Dragon Harpoon. Similarly, only a few arrows by Archers or Crossbowmen will be enough to kill them before they reach their intended destination.
This often makes a frontal assault against a castle using Giant Demonic Bats quite difficult to breach, and the best way to counter them is by using a defensive line of Dragon Harpoons. Better still, if you are playing as the Ice faction, you could use the Ice Queen as well to protect your walls and freeze Giant Demonic Bats before they reach your castle. This will allow your Archers the time they need to target these units properly, while they are frozen.
Units knocked off the higher towers will be killed outright, while unarmoured units such as Archers will often be killed outright regardless, even if they are stationed on ground level. Crossbowmen also take significant damage. It should also be noted that they can only attack units, not buildings.
Please note that Giant Demonic Bats, like all aerial units, are still susceptible to damage by fire on the ground. It's therefore best to keep your Giant Demonic Bat out of fire areas to protect its health.
Unlike ground-based units, because the Giant Demonic Bat is an aerial unit, it can fly through the air and therefore travel over water or other inpassable parts of the map by land. You can use this to your advantage to significantly reduce the movement time of the Giant Demonic Bat, and to gain access to other areas which are difficult by land to take out crucial defence systems.
Tip: Giant Demonic Bats are great for sputtering away enemy forces or causing chaos, but that's just about all they actually are useful for. Because you can only use them once for an attack, they can quickly become quite costly in gold to maintain and keep recruiting.
For this reason, I recommend you use them only occasionally when your opponent is least expecting them, but when they would do the most damage- for example whilst an army is on the move.