Troll Batrider (Warcraft III)

Light flying unit with incredible perception. Good at destroying buildings and flying units (with their suicidal special ability). The fire obsessed troll batriders are often used as reconnaissance for the orcish Horde.

Information
Troll Batriders are fairly weak aerial units like Flying Machines, though they make up for it with their roles of unconventional anti-air killers.

Batriders come with the Unstable Concoction ability upon being trained. It can only be used on aerial units, but it is a powerful ability against armies that have massed aerial units. When used, the Batrider becomes invulnerable and flies towards the targeted air unit, killing themselves but also dealing 600 damage to the primary target and 140 splash damage to nearby aerial units. This ability is extremely effective against enemy air units, as well timed and placed suicide runs can destroy whole aerial armies in seconds.

When the Fortress is obtained, the research Liquid Fire becomes available. Once researched, this ability allows the Batrider's attacks to prevent enemy workers from repairing their buildings until the fire is extinguished. With 15 or so Batriders, they can easily raze a base if it is not well-defended. You may want to bring Wind Riders with them to help take out enemy workers due to siege's poor damage against all but unarmored-type armor.

If the player attempts to use Troll Batriders to target your town halls, build a ring of defensive towers around them. The Troll Batrider has poor range, low health and cloth armor, so massed towers of any sort will easily repel any attack from them.
 * Counters

Outside of bases, simply running ground heavy armies will work, since the Troll Batrider deals negligible damage towards them. Siege Engines with Barrage work wonders on them, despite being countered by their siege damage.

Unstable oncoction

 * Causes a powerful explosion that deals 600 damage to a target air unit and 140 damage to nearby air units. Using this ability destroys the Troll Batrider.
 * When this ability is activated, the Batrider gains a +280 movement speed bonus and becomes invulnerable.

This is the Orc's anti-air option, as Wind Riders are general heavy air units that will have trouble dealing with anti-air specialists. It should only be used on Flying Machines, Hippogryphs and Gargoyles because Unstable Concoction will generally kill them in a single cast, while it'll take more to kill a Gryphon Rider or Frost Wyrm which is a bad trade-off on your resources. However, Batriders can still be used as emergency anti-air for ground-based armies. A surprise Batrider attack can clean out the enemy's air power or at least eliminate key targets, letting you clean up and push the advantage with your superior ground force while the enemy must take time to rebuild.

Note that skilled Undead players may use Stone Form if their Gargoyles get targeted. If the Batrider targets the Gargoyle and he is charging when it uses Stone Form, then the Troll Batrider will die without killing the Gargoyle.

Unstable Concoction deals physical damage, meaning it is reduced by armor. Even fragile targets like Gargoyles can often survive an Unstable Concoction with armor upgrades.

The attack is a success when the Batrider yells "The ends justify da' means!".

iquid Fire (Passive)

 * Flings a volatile liquid that causes buildings to take damage over time.
 * Buildings that are currently taking damage from Liquid Fire cannot be repaired and have their attack rate reduced by 80%.


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If the Batriders are sent to attack bases, this is a useful ability to prevent defensive towers from dealing as much damage, and prevents workers from repairing buildings struck by the Batrider. It is generally less effective against human players due to their ability to compact more towers in a smaller area, along with two of their three defensive towers possessing Heavy instead of Fortified armor.

Quotes

 * See Warcraft III Troll Batrider quotes