Units and Compositions

Drop Assault has many different unit types, each with their unique traits. When selecting a unit composition, there are a few factors to consider:

• Damage per second vs. health. Some units do large damage but have lower health. Others do low damage but have high health. Both are viable but provide a different style of play. High damage builds are all about destroying the enemy as quickly as possible. They require quick reflexes and can usually be more efficient to take out a lot of bases in a short time. High health builds are about careful planning and manoeuvering. Skilled players can usually defeat bases without taking any losses.

• Rebuild time. Some units rebuild in a few minutes while others can take upwards of an hour. Losing a few tacticals or jetbikes in a battle is no big deal since you can rebuild them quickly, and your army can still be useful while not at full capacity. Losing a few glaives means your army is significantly weaker for the next hour. Initially, consider working with units that rebuild faster armies so you can get playing again after losing a lot of them (which will happen as you learn). If you are done playing for a while (e.g. going to bed), consider putting longer building units on your rally zones.

• Cost. Usually the cost does not matter too much, but some units cost legion favour instead of munitions. Using a lot of these units will reduce the amount of legion favour you have for rallies and upgrading your heroes. It is not recommended that you use these units until you have a good enough supply of good heroes.

Players will typically have a favourite unit composition that they fall back on, but may change up their units to deal with particular tricky bases. In order to know which unit composition is best against a particular base, it's important to understand which turrets and heroes are most effective against each unit type. This information can be used to design the right unit type to optimally take out a particularly difficult base. It will also guide you to know which turrets you should destroy/disable with your tactics. This information is also helpful when updating your base defense to better counter certain unit types.

Unit	Top 3 Turrets That Counter*
Tactical	Whirlwind	Plasma	Bolter
Terminator	Flamer	Hunter	Bolter
Support	Whirlwind	Plasma	Hunter
Jetbike	Flamer	Graviton	Plasma
Predator	Lascannon	Graviton	Multi-melta
Dreadnought	Lascannon	Graviton	Multi-melta
Raptor	Whirlwind	Hunter	Bolter
Archmagos	Beamer	Graviton	Multi-melta
Glaive	Beamer	Graviton	Multi-melta
Elite Terminators	Flamer	Hunter	Bolter
Heroes	Beamer	Lascannon	Hunter

* Tanglefoots do not directly do damage but are very effective at slowing down all infantry unit types.

Some heroes are generally good or bad at defense (see the hero section), but these heroes are particularly good at defense against certain unit types:

	Unit This Hero Counters	Reason
Archmagos Draykavac	Vehicles	He can curse+haywire large groups of units
Veltin the Zealot	Tacticals, jetbikes, support, raptors	His volkite cannon does splash damage
Brother Zhyrgal	Tacticals, jetbikes, support, raptors	His volkite cannon does splash damage
Aegrotus Nex	Tacticals, jetbikes, support, raptors	His volkite cannon does splash damage
Bahadur	Jetbikes and terminators	These units take extra damage from fire
Tiborc the Merciless	Jetbikes and terminators	These units take extra damage from fire
Bhaskar the Mangler	Jetbikes and terminators	These units take extra damage from fire
Caedo Aeleddon	Jetbikes and terminators	These units take extra damage from fire
Ikram the Ravager	Glaives, dreadnoughts	His weapon does percentage-based damage
Kaleb Bloodhammer	Glaives, dreadnoughts	His weapon does percentage-based damage

These are some of the most popular unit compositions, and some special considerations

• Terminator + Jetbike

  Unit Balance

  1-2 RZ of terminators, the rest jetbikes

  Max rebuild time

  21 minutes

  Skirmish strategy

  Speed

  Tips

  Watch out for flamers and gravitons. Deploy the terminators first so they get to the front line right before the jetbikes.

• Glaive

  Unit Balance

  2 Archmagos (1 if your hero is Dray), the rest glaives

  Max rebuild time

  60 minutes

  Skirmish strategy

  Strength

  Tips

  Use beacon to keep your units on the fringes of the base. Watch out for beamers and gravitons. Once you have some experience, try playing on 2x or 3x speed to be more efficient with your time.

• Dreadnought + Glaive

  Unit Balance

  1 Archmagos, 50/50 split between dreadnoughts and glaives

  Max rebuild time

  60 minutes

  Skirmish strategy

  Strength

  Tips

  Use beacon to keep your glaives on the fringes of the base. Watch out for beamers and graviton. Once you have some experience, try playing on 2x or 3x speed to be more efficient with your time.

• Tactical (a.k.a. tac swarm)

  Unit Balance

  Tacticals all day, every day

  Max rebuild time

  12 minutes

  Skirmish strategy

  Not recommended

  Tips

  Watch out for anti-infantry mines. Whirlwinds and Beamer explosions can do a lot of damage if you stay in one place. Keep moving to avoid them.

• Predator + Dreadnought (a.k.a. pred 'n' dread)

  Unit Balance

  2 Archmagos (1 if your hero is Dray), 50/50 predators and dreadnoughts

  Max rebuild time

  45 minutes

  Skirmish strategy

  Strength

  Tips

  Watch out for anti-armor and haywire mines

• Terminator + Support

  Unit Balance

  2-3 RZ of terminators, the rest support

  Max rebuild time

  21 minutes

  Skirmish strategy

  Strength

  Tips

  Deploy at the same time, terminators will naturally go to the front. Watch out for whirlwinds, they will make quick work of your support. Consider keeping one pad of predators in the rear to draw whirlwind fire away from the support.

• Elite Terminators

  Unit Balance

  all terminators

  Max rebuild time

  21 minutes

  Skirmish strategy

  Speed

  Tips

  Watch out for flamers. For skirmish, Pheonix Guard Elite Terminators (Emperor's Children) are good due to their speed.