Mirage · Heavensteel unit: Cloaked close-range missile flyer

On the battlefield

The Mirage is a strike flyer: three gunships that fire paired missiles at air and ground and carry 5,118 HP each, tough for something that flies. Against an army without anti-air it is close to unstoppable: in the launch tests it beats the Ridgeback, the Rotor, the Cutter, the Torch, the Aurochs, the Anvil, the Weaver, the Salvo, the Breaker and even the Landship. Its 65 m reach is short, so ranged anti-air wins: Hexguards, Coursers, the Heron and the Dreadnought all bring it down.

Wins against

Loses to

From equal-supply battles of each pair at 400, 800 and 1,600 supply (no techs, 20 seeds each). Real armies mix units, so read these as tendencies.

Where to deploy

Behind your line, aimed at the side of the enemy army with the least anti-air; it flies over the front and goes for the backline.

Early and late rounds

At 300 supply (and a 50 unlock) it is a mid-game buy. It wins rounds when the enemy has no anti-air yet and forces them to buy some.

Techs that change its job

Cloak makes it untargetable until it fires, so it arrives intact. Oil Slick leaves slowing oil where the missiles land. Shield Cell doubles its staying power under anti-air fire.

Anatomy

Drag, hover and tap the parts. Open it full screen.

Stats

Deploy cost: 300; supply
Unlock: 50; supply, once a match
Squad: ×3; 3 machines
HP: 5,118; per machine
Damage: 1,087 ×2; a volley of 2
Attack interval: 3 s
Squad DPS: 2,174; whole squad, before armor
Range: 65 m
Speed: 16 m/s
Targets: Air & ground
Splash: 3 m; radius
Layer: Air
Footprint: 5×2; tiles of 10 m

Level 1, no techs. Distances in metres (one board tile is 10 m).

Techs

Tech	Cost	What it does
Cloak	200	Starts each battle untargetable, until it attacks
Oil Slick	150	Leaves an oil slick (15 m radius for 6 s: slows to 60% speed) where it hits
Shield Cell	150	A 5,118-point shield on each machine
Long Barrels	100	+40 m range
Heavy Plating	150	+40% HP, blocks 60 damage from every hit