Special Unit Balance

[Alvendor]

I used to think Scramblers were underpowered but I'm not so sure anymore. It might just be that they require the most skill.

It is the most flexible special unit that can help with both defense and offense and switch between the two quickly which the others can't (okay mobi can do it in certain situations).

It will likely die when used offensively so you generally need to kill a heavy/sniper/special that turn to make it worth it. And as you describe it, it is common to hide the heavy behind a row of other units. But now the scrambler player can counter that by starting attacking the row of soldiers with his soldiers, and as he has a scrambler the other player can't use the heavy to defend with.

When playing defense it is not at all as fragile and can many times defend the attack without getting killed (in higher level play the scrambler might just prevent certain attacks as the opponent know you will be able to defend and keep the scrambler alive).

There are also many situations when you can hide the scrambler behind a unit wall and force the opponent to do some guessing as his play are very different depending on exactly what tile your scrambler occupy.

Now, it might very well be that the Scrambler is the worst special unit, its hard to say. But I think its likely it is the unit that requires most skill and understanding of the game. Anyway, I'd bet any of the globally ranked top 3 players could play any race and still be in the top 10 without a problem.