The cleric is a defensive or support unit. Even though it does have an attack power it will not do any damage. “But why?” you may ask? Its because the Cleric is unique, it is the only human spell caster you would want to knowingly attack yourself with, the only unit capable of healing one or more friendly units. Like other units, the Cleric needs to have both good and bad points to keep the game fair, balanced, and fun. Here is the basic run trough of the good and bad points the Cleric possesses:

Good points:

• The Cleric can heal all of your units.
• The Cleric only costs one unit in setup placement.
• There is access to one at least one Cleric in both Grey and Gold accounts

Bad points:

• The cleric has no armor or blocking.
• The cleric can only move 3 spaces.
• The cleric has a 5-turn recovery.

If you are unfamiliar with the Cleric, please click here. Knowing the Clerics general statistics help you have a better understanding of the unit and this guide.

I would like to point out that it is a unit in a very complex tactics game. Even though it’s statistics are simple that does not mean that using it will be. There are still some techniques and strategies that can be learned and mastered by almost everyone, with the exception of an elite few.

Moving the Cleric is almost pointless. Unless the Cleric is about to be killed moving is out of the question. Moving should have careful consideration applied. “Can it run for affective cover?” “If I do move, will my other units survive until their next move?” The survival of your Cleric can mean the survival of the game. When you move and attack with your Cleric it has a 5-turn wait until his next move. If you do not need to move but need to heal, you will only need to wait 3 turns until the Cleric will be available again. This means that even though one of the downsides of the Cleric is a long recovery you can significantly reduce it by simply skipping your move phase.

Cleric placement is key but simple: The cleric is clearly not a strong defender. It has no armor, and has 0% blocking on all sides. So it calls for a strong defense. Units depend on the cleric to:

• Finish off an opponents unit, and get out alive.
• Complete a strategy that requires multiple turns.
• Heal to prevent a unit from dieing to quickly.

This means that it in turn also depends heavily on other units. It’s biggest dependence is it’s lack of defense. Which is why it rarely appears on the front lines of the battlefield, generally it is just placed in one of the three fallowing positions:



I’ll make a few recommendations where to best place your Cleric for different formations, explain why it’s there, and how to use it in that position.

Turtle:
A turtle formation is like a “huddle” in a sense that all you units are pulled back from the front line, in a defensive position. Defensive units like the Knight, Stone Golem, Furgon, and Frost Golem are recommended for this setup. Turtle formations are generally located in a corner, so natural the most protected part would be at the back of the formation, in the corner. This is where you will place your Cleric.
Here are some examples of a turtle setup in either account style:



Note: Units are not spread out, and not close to the enemy.

The Cleric is a powerful unit when used in a turtle, he is very difficult to reach let alone kill. Your other units are close enough to easily get in the way of attack or use their abilities to slow, kill enemies, and protect the Cleric. The use of a Cleric in a turtle is quite simple. When more then one, or one very important unit gets hurt. Heal.

Rush and Bomb:
Rush like set ups are designed to get your power units into the face of the enemy, starting on the front line, doing as much damage as fast as you can. Here some examples of rush like formations:



While more and more rushers are starting to sub out there Clerics for bonus attackers I feel it is still an essential unit. Protecting a Cleric in a rush formation is much harder then in a turtle, there are no support units other then it’s self to look out for it. This is why I feel every rush should have either an Enchantress, or a Frost Golem to protect the cleric from anything that may get over/around your offence:



The Dragon Tyrant is one of the four units that can kill a Cleric in one hit. The other three are the Lightning Ward, a Dragondpeaker Mage, and a Dark Magic Witch. Because of their high power attacks and the Cleric's lack of armor it is easy picking for them.

Here are some examples of why putting a Frost Golem or Enchantress in front of your Cleric is a good way to protect against some of these one hit killers:



You see how the Frost Golem stops the Dragon from attacking the Cleric. It can now proceed to pin down the attacking unit until back up arrives:



The best defense for your cleric is focus spells in the form of paralyzing.

Although you can set up some pretty good defensive measures for keeping your Cleric in tact, you may still encounter it’s 3 worst enemies. I will now tell you what they are and why you should look out for them, in the best interest of your Cleric.

- The Poison Wisp, because it can move so far, it can get to the back of your formation and attack your Cleric very easily. Thanks to it’s teleportation movement, your units don’t stand in it’s way. After it has moved in, it has another trick up it’s sleeve, it can temporally daze and damage any units that might have been able to defend the Cleric.



you now see how the Frost Golem is helpless to defend the Cleric.

- The Golem Ambusher, because of it’s range of 5 spaces It can attack the back line. It is unique as is unaffected by line of sight, which means nothing gets in it’s way of attack.



“But what if the Ambusher got blocked from an enemy unit moving ahead?” well that leads us to our next pro Cleric killer…

- The Mud Golem has a combination of movement and power. It’s special ability affectionately named “mud quake”, will damage every unit (with the exception of the Poison Wisp) in a 3 square radius, dealing 15, 10, and 5 damage. This ability enables the Mud to reach even farther, and even closer to your Cleric. In the image below the Ambusher was prevented from moving ahead, a wise move. Though the Mud Golem is still free to move into range of the Cleric.



The only way something like this could be prevented would be in the case of a turtle where the Mud may not find room to move close enough, or with the protection of a properly timed Barrier Ward. This further explains the increasing popular Clericless rush and bomb formations.

Timing for your Cleric’s heal is also very important. You should brush up on your basic math skills, or have a calculator handy if you haven’t memorized how much damage each unit can do to every other unit. Healing when none for your units has taken damage is clearly not a smart thing to do, nor is attempting to save a unit you cannot heal enough to stop the next attack from killing. If you can move the unit that is about to die, I recommend trying to hit something in range of another one of your units and then attempt to flee for cover. Another tactic I have seen used quite commonly, is using ranged units like Scouts, Wisps, and Muds to move out of the formation, attack and get attack, then flee back to the cover of a stronger unit like a Knight. Begin to heal the fleeing unit back to a healthy condition so you may once again move in. This is tricky to do because your opponent now needs to be distracted by another unit, so as not go continue trying to kill your fleeing unit. Using this tactic may allow some of your units to last longer into the game but that also means that some of your opponents will as well. If one of your Knights has the opportunity to finish off a Golem for example but you are in need to heal one of your other units that may die soon. The Golem may damage, or kill one of your units and may even get way afterward. This is why your judgment must be applied.

After you have suffered a significant bomb, well placed Wisp, Mud quake, or finished off the opponent’s Cleric. Healing frequently is recommended

If a scout has manage to use a trick shot or take advantage of “line of sight in” some way or another to hit your Cleric, don’t panic and heal right away. Ask yourself: “what other units are in reach of my Cleric” If they are: “can they kill it?” and if they can kill it: “how many more turns do they have to wait until they can?” Healing immediately after a scout shot will do nothing for your Cleric, or the rest of your formation. The Scout will hit you again and you Cleric will die. Unless you can get out of any possible line of sight shots, or tie up the Scout with shrubs or by paralyzing it. What I’m trying to get at here is you should pay careful attention to turn recovery on all your enemy’s units when your Cleric is venerable. Because your opponent have to wait they will damage other units of yours that are in reach until they can finish of your Cleric, so by postponing the Cleric’s last heal other units benefit from it. To prevent some of these “trick shots” from ever happening you need to first better know how the Scouts like of sight works. To become more familiar with how the Scout and line of sight work, please click here. You now see that for most trick shots an empty space behind the target is required, by properly placing your Cleric on the edge of the game board you can prevent a scout from ever getting around the rest of your units you may have placed there to protect the Cleric.

This concludes the general Cleric Strategy Guide.

Created by: Necross


Special thanks goes to Punishment, Hulky, Forest_Archer, CHILL, and bludhoundz for screen shots, setup help, and proofing. Thanks guys, couldn’t have done it with out you.