A Guide to the Nemean Lion
by ManticoreKiller

Once again, I'd like to thank ArtemisChimera for allowing me to use his format. I made a few changes this time. Buddy, I hope u come back soon and when you do- if you are doing Atlantean, how about an Argus guide?

This is one unit I am not too familiar with. I only remember using it twice (both times in the vanilla spc). I have always considered this unit a greek Battle Boar. Lets see if that is true-

The Unit

Nemean Lion (Greek Heroic age MU)
Melee MU with secondary capability against buildings. Area effect special
Available to players who choose Aphrodite (Posiedon/Hades)
Can be upgraded to the Nemean Rex by researching the Roar of Orthus 300F 30Fv

Stats (Stats of the Upgraded unit with a breakup of how the upgrade affects the original unit ):
HP: 660
Hack Damage: 20
Crush Damage: 10
Hack Armour: 43% (30% + 13%)
Pierce Armour: 80% (60% + 20%)
Crush Armour: 80%
Speed: 4.80

Special: Roars causing area damage to units in front and beside it. It does 67 hack damage to unit directly targetted. Units as far as 12 metres on either side take slight damage. Units behind the targetted units also take a reduced amount of damage upto 6 metres from the Nemean Lion. Some important points about it's special are-

1. It does bonus damage (3x) to other MUs.
2. It takes 5 seconds to act. The target starts taking damage even before the roar begins.
3. Unlike the Chimera's special, this is not ranged. Even though it does do area damage, the Nemean Lion needs to be right in front of the target.
4. Unlike the Chimera's special, this does not do instant damage but does it over 5 seconds. During that time, the Nemean Lion is vurnerable to attack.
5. In groups, the special stacks up and is very dangerous.
6. Heroes in the area also take a small amount of damage.
7. It takes a whopping 25 seconds to recharge.

Bonuses: 3x Normal and Special damage vs other MUs

Cost: 250G 22Fv 4Pop

The first thing that struck me about this unit was the pierce armour. 80%!! At first I thought it was a typo until I learnt otherwise. It seems to be a unit designed to take out archers and buildings. It has good attack, reasonable hp, weak hack armour and monster pierce armour. The upgrade is pretty important as it improves the hack armour to an acceptable level and boosts the pierce armour from 60%, which useful to 80% which is awesome. Another thing that really surprised me is was the power of its special. I'll go out on a leg and say that with the exception of the Frost Giant and the Hydra, this unit has the best special attack among heroic age MUs. To underline the fact that this unit is good against archers, the 67 hack damage the special does is amazingly effective against the weak hack armour and hitpoints of ranged units. The area of effect is HUGE though most units in the area take only slight damage. While it's not the fastest unit around, at least its not too slow. In short, this looks like a pretty useful unit. Lets see if this holds through a few tests. The unit is pretty expensive like all greek MUs but you should have no problem affording a few with their expensive upgrade if you research Aphrodite's other techs which boost your villagers.

Tests
Note: Since this is a Heroic MU, all human units have Medium and Heavy, Copper and Bronze upgrades

1. 1 Nemean Rex vs 1 Zeus Hoplite (143hp 11 hack damage 43% hack armour):
The Nemean Lion's roar causes the hoplite to lose 35 hitpoints over 5 seconds. Subsequently, the Nemean Rex does 13 damage per shot it gets on the hoplite which it does once a second. The hoplite gets in 7 damage per second on the Nemean Lion. The Nemean Rex whacks the hoplite in 14 seconds with 584 hp left. It takes 4 hoplites attacking simultaneously to kill 1 Nemean Rex.

2. 3 Nemean Rex vs 20 Heavy Turmae (96hp 6 pierce damage 23% hack armour 12 range):
It takes the Lions 44 seconds to polish off all 20 turmae (the bane of playing the Atlanteans). The special attacks stack up and cause some serious area damage. The Lions themselves take very little damage from the Turmae thanks to their monster pierce armour. 2-3 Nemean Rexes backed by some hyapsists will stop any Turma spammers in their tracks.

3. 1 Nemean Rex vs 1 Battle Boar (720hp 20 hack damage 20 crush damage 60% hack armour):
The battle boar is one of the toughest heroic MUs out there. They have huge hp and armour and pack a sizeable punch. They also do bonus damage to other MUs. This should be no contest right? - wrong! The Nemean Rex shocked me by winning this exchange. The special does 80 damage to the battle boar. After that, the battle boar does 15 damage per shot to the Nemean Lion while the Lion does 24 damage per shot to the Battle Boar. Result: The Nemean Rex kills the Battle Boar in 36 seconds with 127 hp left. On the whole though, it is about average in the Heroic lineup because of its weak hack armour.

The Nemean Rex loses to the following fully upgraded heroic MUs in a 1 vs 1 contest-
Hydra (1 head)
Frost Giant
Mountain Giant
Scorpion Man
Stymphalian Bird (takes a long time)

The Nemean Rex beats the following fully upgraded heroic MUs in a 1 vs 1 contest-
Manticore
Petsuchos
Satyr
Battle Boar
Scarab
Behemoth

4. 1 Nemean Rex vs 1 Greek House (466hp 35% hack armour w masons upgrade):
The Nemean Rex also demonstrates a good building killing capability by destroying the house in 20 seconds.

5. 4 Nemean Rex vs 1 Greek Town Center (2800hp) guarded by 10 heavy Toxotes:
By heroic, you should really be looking to take out enemy TCs. The Batlle Boar is one unit that excells at doing just that even if they are guarded by a large number of units. The 4 Nemean Rex take next to no time to kill all the Toxotes . The combined special took out 4 instantly. They then take out the town center very efficiently. 3 Nemean Rexes take next to no damage at all. One takes moderate damage. The entire excercise is over in 50 seconds.

These tests prove that the Nemean Lion is very good at doing what it is supposed to do. It is not that good vs other MUs unless they are ranged MUs. Also avoid using this unit against infantry. Even though this is pretty good against infantry, the fact that by choosing Aphrodite, you have blocked off the only healing option available to the greeks (Temple Of Healing, Apollo) makes it uneconomial to use this against infantry.

Suggested Usgae

vs Greeks- This unit can easily counter massed toxotes. It's special makes it very good against groups of greek villagers. Great for raids to take out barracks, archery ranges and stables where the pierce armour will prevent them from getting too damaged.

vs Norse- I would hesitate to reccomend this over the other two choices in Heroic vs the Norse. I do so because the Norse have no regular units that do peirce damage. Also, norse Hersirs are melee heroes and will have this for breakfast. Can be useful against the weak norse buildings but that's all I can see.

vs Egyptians- I would generally hesitate to reccomend the use of any MUs vs the egyptians. In this case, i'll make an exception. The pierce armour is so high that only large groups of priests or a pharoh can make a dent in its huge armour. In contrast, the Nemean Lion owns two of the most important egyptian units- Slingers and Chariot Archers. Definitely a better choice than the Hydra (with its weak peirce armour) or the Manticore.

vs Atlanteans- The Atlanteans are generally the best civ to use MUs against. This is because of their weak and prohibitively expensive heroes and their MUs which generally lack hp. This unit rules the Atlantean player's main weapon, the Turma/Katapeltes combo. Combine a few Nemean Lions with some hyapsists and you can wipe out any raiding party. Watch out for Argus and Lampades in mythic though.

Conclusion
I started off this guide thinking this was a greek battle boar. I'd like to reasess this unit now and say its more like a Sphinx on steroids than a batlle boar. I'm pretty pleased with the way this unit performs. While not earth shattering in any way, this unit embodies what I have come to expect from greek MUs. It is tough, powerful and easy to use. It has a function and does it well. This is not the unit for you if you expect it to single handedly win the game for you. Instead, it can be very useful indeed. Greek players do have two other choices available in Heroic. True, the hydra is an amazing combat unit, even with just one head. On the flip side, it is very expensive and will generally have lost a lot of hp by the time it gets to grow 5 heads, especially since you can't heal it. The Manticore is good at combat support but it is hideously expensive for what it brings to the table. On the whole, the Nemean Lion is a very sensible choice for greek players in general as I think it is a very well balanced unit which brings a lot of advantages with it. Furthermore, Aphrodite's techs are pretty good as they will allow you to reduce your villager population and free up more space for military units. With a god power that can be useful if used wisely, I think that Aphrodite is a pretty good choice for Greek players to take especially agianst Egyptian and Atlantean opposition.

Right- now vote for any Greek or Norse MU you want to see in a guide next week except the ones already covered. Try making your choice in bold. You can do this by enclosing the text with tags-

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