Armored Princess Unit Analysis Extra: Leadership to Health Ratios

It's worth noting that if you bother to pursue the Guardian Angel Medal, all ratios will ultimately be more favorable than I'm listing here for your units, with this being more true the better the base resistance is and less true for negative resistances. Armored Princess also gives somewhat better access to resistance-providing Items than The Legend did, so in player hands these ratios will often go still farther in truth, especially if already positive, without even needing Spellcasting support.

Also note that all summoning values I list for units can be increased by up to 50% through ranks in the Summoner Skill. For the moment, at least, I'm not explicitly including them in this pot, but Rune Mags using Illusion is the only unit-based summon that isn't affected by Summoner ranks.

Positive ratios

Units whose Health is actually greater than their Leadership, making them reliably durable for their Leadership, particularly from the perspective of effects that ignore Attack/Defense modifiers. (ie Spells and Rage attacks, primarily)

Dryad

1.25 (20 Leadership, 25 Health)

Summon Thorns: 0.3-0.66 per use (8-10 Leadership per use per Dryad)

Same as The Legend, including that they're still the single bulkiest unit in the game when it comes to trying to kill them with Spells and Rage. Though less dramatically so than in The Legend. (In the sense that basically everything else is less... lesser)

Zombie

1.2 (30 Leadership, 36 Health)

 2.4 (50% Poison resistance)

 1.08 (-10% Fire resistance)

They're still worse than Black Knights for tanking Physical punishment, but they're now better at absorbing every other damage type -yes, even the Fire damage they're slightly vulnerable to. So Zombies are noticeably more worth considering if you just want a unit to tank hits.

Decaying Zombie

1.2 (40 Leadership, 48 Health)

 2.4 (50% Poison resistance)

 1.08 (-10% Fire resistance)

Still the exact same ratio as Zombies, meaning their own ratio is better than in The Legend. So that's nice for them.

Peasant

1.2 (6 Leadership, 5 Health)

A respectable jump in their durability, making them that bit better as Sacrifice fodder.

In practice, that comment is offset by the fact that most returning units in Armored Princess are tougher than in The Legend, but still.

Ancient Ent

1.16 (1200 Leadership, 1400 Health)

 1.28~ (10% Physical resistance)

 2.32 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.58 (-100% Fire resistance)

A nearly 50% increase in their durability, turning Ancient Ents into legitimately one of the tankiest units in the series, so long as Fire isn't being thrown about. They're still hampered a bit by the near-total inability to heal them, but eg a Paladin can let their Resurrection Skill handle that issue to tank without spending Gold.

Skeleton

1.16 (12 Leadership, 14 Health)

 2.32 (50% Poison resistance)

 1.03 (-10% Fire resistance)

Bone: 3.86 (70% resistance to arrows)

Now Skeletons break past the 1:1 ratio just out the box! In fact, they're still above it even when their Fire weakness is being picked on!

This unfortunately mostly makes them much more of an obstacle in enemy hands than a useful unit in player hands, outside I guess necromantically raising them mid-combat.

Lake Fairy

1.14 (7 Leadership, 8 Health)

 1.52 (25% Magic resistance)

Yes, Lake Fairies are now not only the tougher of the fairy pair, but are in fact above the 1:1 ratio. If you've ever found Lake Fairies troubling in Armored Princess and not been sure why this was so, it may well be this point: their stacks can soak a lot of punishment now!

Griffin

1.12 (80 Leadership, 90 Health)

1.24~ (10% Physical resistance)

 1.4 (20% Magic resistance)

Exact same ratio and numbers as The Legend, but with more competition Griffins stand out less in Armored Princess. Heck, Lake Fairies beat them out, while also being a swift melee attacker that can fly over Traps and whatnot. Griffins are at least slightly ahead at surviving Physical damage...

Thorn Warrior

1.12 (8 Leadership, 9 Health)

 2.24 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.56 (-100% Fire resistance)

Sowing: 0.1875 to 0.56 (2-4 Leadership of Thorn Warriors or Thorn Hunters. 0.56 is a high roll of Thorn Warriors, 0.1875 is a low roll of Thorn Hunters)

That little bit tougher. You still shouldn't field Thorn Warriors directly, generally, but this makes Thorn Warriors made by Royal Thorns, Thorn Hunters, and Dryads that little bit better at meatsheielding.

Miner

1.1 (20 Leadership, 22 Health)

This'd be a more noteworthy boost if Armored Princess hadn't made so many other units better than 1:1. Still noteworthy, mind, but less than it would've been in The Legend.

At least it's something over Dwarves-the-unit, which they previously shared a ratio with? The Foreman support is a much bigger boost, honestly, but hey.

Black Knight

1.06 (150 Leadership, 160 Health)

 1.51~ (30% Physical resistance)

 2.12 (50% Poison resistance)

Unchanged in base ratios, but Mastery means they're exceptionally slow to die to unit attacks. In practice they stand out less than in The Legend when it comes to Rage and Spell damage, though, since those are overall stronger in Armored Princess.

Royal Snake

1.06 (60 Leadership, 64 Health)

 1.17~ (10% Physical resistance)

 5.3 (80% Poison resistance)

Royal Snakes were already absurdly good, and now they're outright above a 1:1 ratio before considering their resistances. Wow.

1-to-1 Ratio

Units whose Leadership is equal to their Leadership. I don't bother to list their base ratio, since it's implicit in the category.

This is a much larger category than in The Legend, with a goodly number of relatively generic melee units in it, including a surprising proportion of them having one or more resistances.

Robber

20 Health/Leadership

33% tougher than in The Legend. Pretty nice of a bump, but all the snakes also got bumped up.

Marauder

30 Health/Leadership

A small boost, unlike with Robbers, but still a boost. Also means Marauders are only better at tanking unit-derived punishment, and only due to their not-very-large Defense advantage.

Swordsman

35 Health/Leadership

 1.25 (20% Physical resistance)

A modest but appreciated boost.

I don't list Cautious, even though it contributes to their durability, because its actual effect is too variable. Not just the RNG aspect, but the need to do enough damage to trigger it: at very low Leadership scales, Cautious can't ever trigger, as an extreme example, but even at higher Leadership scales... if you knock a Swordsmen stack just barely low enough to trigger Cautious and then hit them from there exclusively with attacks that can miss, that's a very different average/expected performance than if your first unit attack rips the squad in half and then you remove another 40% of their original size with Spells, Rage, and Talents that can't miss, leaving only 10% of the original stack with any opportunities to evade.

Guardsman

50 Health/Leadership

 1.25 (20% Physical resistance)

Guardsmen were already largely better than Swordsmen in The Legend, but this pretty strongly clinches it.

Knight

160 Health/Leadership

/ 1.4~ (30% Physical and Fire resistance)

You don't miss Iron Fist on Knights, as they're only slightly behind Iron Fist Knights from The Legend and are otherwise ahead. The only reason I don't consider Knights stellar meatshields in Armored Princess is that Paladins have shown up, and tend to displace them in practice. If Paladins weren't around, Knights would be great for soaking punishment. As-is, they can still be appreciated f your run hasn't found a Paladin source, or has depleted its only currently-accessible sources.

Druid

100 Health/Leadership

 1.33 (25% Magic resistance)

Summon Bear: 0.2-0.25 per use (20-25 Health per 100 Leadership per use)

Archmage: 1.33 (Leadership reduced to 75)

Archmage+ 1.77~

Archmage+Summon Bear: 0.26-0.33 per use

This is an impressive jump in position: back in The Legend, Druids were one of the lowest ratios in the game, with even the Archmage Skill leaving them at a fairly sad value. Even considering how much more common 1:1 is in Armored Princess, this is a big jump -and if you're playing a Mage in Orcs on the March, you've still got Archmage, and it's even stronger now!

Cerberus

90 Health/Leadership

 2.0 (50% Fire resistance)

Same as The Legend.

With almost everything else getting tougher, that makes Cerberus functionally even less appealing as a tank than they already were. Ouch.

Snake

30 Health/Leadership

 2.0 (50% Poison resistance)

That extra bit tougher.

Swamp Snake

28 Health/Leadership

 5.0 (80% Poison resistance)

Also tougher, but still invalidated by Royal Snakes, and indeed overall invalidated harder than ever.

Cave Spider

14 Health/Leadership

 1.25 (20% Physical resistance)

 0.9 (-10% Fire resistance)

Same as ever, durability-wise.

With most everything else getting tougher, they stand out less, though. And even being an easily-Resurrected Physical tank is a role they've been heavily overshadowed in. Guard Droids are way easier to use in that role, and way more effective, just needing Guard Droid/Engineer support.

Venomous Spider

12 Health/Leadership

 5.0 (80% Poison resistance)

 0.9 (-10% Fire resistance)

Better than before, but with so many other units hitting (or exceeding) a 1:1 ratio, the Venomous Spider isn't helped as much by this as one might hope. It's still better to use a Royal Snake to soak Poison damage, for example.

Fire Spider

30 Health/Leadership

 2.0 (50% Poison resistance)

 1.33 (25% Fire resistance)

This is an appreciated bump in bulk, but much less significant than their switch from Physical damage to Fire damage.

Ent

260 Health/Leadership

 1.1 (10% Physical resistance)

 2.0 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.5 (-100% Fire resistance)

An increase of roughly one-third over their prior Health. Nice.

Still behind Ancient Ents, it's worth pointing out.

Gorgul

70 Health/Leadership

 1.1 (10% Physical resistance)

 1.25 (20% Poison resistance)

 0.9 (-10% Fire resistance)

Rugged Scales: 2.0 (Assorted ranged attacks)

The basic Lizardman melee unit is quite tanky, overall. This is part of why big stacks of them can be quite nasty in the late game, especially given they're so fast.

Forest Fairy

9 Health/Leadership

 1.25 (25% Magic resistance)

 0.66 (-50% Fire resistance)

Same ratio as back when they were called Sprites, even though their per-head Health is higher and all.

I'm not really sure why they have a worse base ratio than Lake Fairies now, given they also have a Fire weakness?

Undead Spider

13 Health/Leadership

 2.0 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.9 (-10% Fire resistance)

Same as ever, unfortunately. With so much else getting tougher, they're comparatively worse...

Pirate

25 Health/Leadership

Nimble: 1.25 (20% unconditional evasion chance)

For unit combat purposes, Pirates are much tougher, on average, than in The Legend, having jumped from 0.8 to 1.25 expected ratio anytime dodging is an option. If you find Pirates and feel like they're weirdly tough, this is why -if you're not bypassing their evasion chance, they'll average durability equal to what was peak (general) durability in The Legend!

Also note that they're no longer behind Sea Dogs in ratio, so they're no longer as heavily pushed aside by Sea Dogs.

Sea Dog

40 Health/Leadership

Nimble: 1.25 (20% unconditional evasion chance)

Not quite as dramatic as with Pirates -Sea Dogs had a 0.85 ratio in The Legend- but still quite dramatic.

Dwarf

80 Health/Leadership

Dwarves-the-unit already suffered from the fact that multiple units tended to outstrip them in real terms when it came to durability thanks to advantageous resistances, but now several of those same units actively start from a 1:1 ratio while still having the resistances! Dwarves really needed, you know, a resistance, or more Health, or to be something other than a generic melee fighter.

Alas, that doesn't happen in this game.

Lightly Negative Ratios

Units whose Health is below their Leadership, but is at worst 75% of their Leadership.

Royal Thorn

0.94 (380 Leadership, 360 Health)

 1.88 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.47 (-100% Fire resistance)

Germinate: 0.29~ to 0.88~ (150 to 300 Leadership of Thorn Warriors or Thorn Hunters. 0.29~ is a low roll of Thorn Hunters, while 0.87~ is a high roll of Thorn Warriors)

Royal Thorns were already one of the bulkier ranged units of The Legend, and now they're respectable even by melee standards! And with Thorns being bulkier, they're also noticeably better at meatshielding view their summons.

Orc Tracker

0.93 (160 Leadership, 150 Health)

 1.03 (10% Poison resistance)

Adrenaline Level 2, Poison:  1.3~ (Poison resistances rises to 30%)

Adrenaline Level 2, Physical:  1.16~ (Physical resistance rises to 20%)

Healer: 0.28 per use (44 Health per Tracker per use)

I'm not listening Animal Companion because it has too much variation and is further complicated by the health splitting effect.

Regardless, you might notice that Orc Trackers are pretty solidly above a 1:1 ratio if sufficient Adrenaline support is available, and not so much if you're struggling to get them Adrenaline.

Unicorn

0.92 (130 Leadership, 120 Health)

 1.23 (25% Magic resistance)

Same as last game, but Health standards have overall risen, so they stand out less. Even if you specifically want a fast tank, there's notable competition -such as the next unit!

Veteran Orc

0.92 (140 Leadership, 130 Health)

 1.02~ (10% Physical resistance)

Adrenaline Level 2: 1.07~ (Health rises by 20 points)

Adrenaline Level 2+: 1.18~

Noticeably tougher than in The Legend, with a slightly higher base and then outright jumping over a 1:1 ratio once their Adrenaline is high enough. Nice!

They also have Veteran Mastery for a 5-20% chance to evade attacks based on Adrenaline level, but I'm not including that because it's too variable to be worth pinning a specific number to. This nonetheless means that in unit combat, they generally do even better than the above numbers suggest.

Reminder: they have a base Speed of 3 and the ability to gift themselves two Action Points for a minor Adrenaline cost twice per battle. As such, they're overall tankier than Unicorns and can achieve comparable speeds.

Foreman

0.92 (130 Leadership, 120 Health)

 0.83 (-10% Magic resistance)

 1.02~ (10% Fire resistance)

A new unit, with very respectable bulk in ratio terms. The slight weakness to Magic and slight resistance to Fire aren't very consequential overall, but do mean that Magic damage options vs Fire damage options pretty noticeably favors Magic damage against them.

Paladin

0.91 (220 Leadership, 200 Health)

/ 1.29~ (30% Physical and Magical resistance)

 1.0~  (10% Fire resistance)

Prayer: 0.11~ per affected friendly (24 Health per affected friendly per 220 Leadership)

Note that Prayer is actually more efficient resurrection per target than the Inquisitor's single-target Resurrection. In fact, even if Resurrection-the-Skill and Archmage-the-Skill could be combined, the Paladin would still deliver a superior ratio per target!

Paladins are also plenty bulky in terms of their bases, especially since only Poison and Astral damage will actually be fully effective against them, and of course in unit combat they will rapidly get extremely high Defense to further shrug off hits. A really, really good unit at absorbing punishment all-around.

The AI is pretty bad at using them optimally, mind.

Witch Hunter

0.91 (120 Leadership, 110 Health)

 1.82 (50% Magic resistance)

That's a very solid ratio for such a fast unit, and indeed Witch Hunters are one of the best units in the game at absorbing Magic damage.

Beaten out by anything with Spell Immunity, mind.

Werewolf Elf

0.91 (60 Leadership, 55 Health)

A modest boost in durability.

They've also picked up Lycanthropy, but there's no point to assigning it a ratio.

Shaman

0.9 (200 Leadership, 180 Health)

Adrenaline Level 2: 1.15 (Health rises by 50)

Archmage: 1.2 (Leadership lowers to 150)

Adrenaline Level 2+Archmage: 1.53~

Totem of Death: 0.05 (10 Health per 200 Leadership)

Totem of Life: 0.035 (7 Health per 200 Leadership)

Totem of Death+Archmage: 0.066~ (10 Health per 150 Leadership)

Totem of Life+Archmage: 0.047 (7 Health per 150 Leadership)

Overall just plain tougher than in The Legend. Their base ratio is a little worse than a Shaman backed by Archmage-the-Skill in The Legend, but not by much, and they're one of the more likely Orcs to hit Adrenaline Level 3 before having to take hits, even considering their tendency to randomly generate huge amounts of Adrenaline, at which point they have a great ratio. And of course from a Mage's perspective they're really just 100% superior so long as you're intending to invest in Archmage. (Which is admittedly less guaranteed than in The Legend)

Hyena

0.9 (20 Leadership, 18 Health)

 0.81 (-10% Fire resistance)

A modest boost to Hyena durability, making them more prone to getting to use their decent offensive potential instead of dying before reaching the battle line.

They're still not a good choice for tanking, though.

Furious Goblin

0.88 (45 Leadership, 40 Health)

Adrenaline Level 2: 1.0 (Gains 5 Health)

Technically a slight downgrade in ratio compared to The Legend, but if they hit Adrenaline Level 2 before taking any hits, they're actively ahead. There's ways to make that reliably true at the start of a battle, so it's worth pointing out.

Orc

0.87 (80 Leadership, 70 Health)

 0.96~ (10% Physical resistance)

This is notably worse a ratio than in The Legend where they were one of the only units with a positive ratio, so it's a good thing Orcs have picked up a bunch offensive advantages to justify themselves.

It's pretty funny to me that they've basically swapped with Veteran Orcs relative to The Legend, incidentally.

Vampire (Human form)

0.87 (80 Leadership, 70 health)

 1.74 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.78~ (-10% Fire resistance)

Now respectably durable in base ratio.

That's not why you use Vampires, but for one thing it makes enemy Vampires a little less trivial to nuke down with Spells and Rage.

Ancient Bear

0.87 (80 Leadership, 70 Health)

 0.96 (10% Physical resistance)

 0.78 (-10% Fire resistance)

Unchanged from The Legend, oddly enough. In practice, you're a lot less likely to use them at all, since there's no longer an extended early game of very low Leadership for their comparatively high per-head Health to shine in.

Polar Bear

0.86 (150 Leadership, 130 Health)

 0.95 (10% Physical resistance)

 0.77 (-10% Fire resistance)

Resistant to Cold: 1.14~ (25% resistance to cold damage)

Slightly tougher, so now they're just barely below Ancient bears in ratio terms. The Legend was already set up so Polar Bears were the apex bear type, but you could at least argue Ancient Bears were better meatshields, by enough of a margin to matter. Not so much in Armored Princess.

Scoffer Imp

0.86 (60 Leadership, 52 Health)

 1.72 (50% Fire resistance)

Slightly better ratio than in The Legend.

Chosha

0.86 (220 Leadership, 190 Health)

/ 0.74 (-10% Physical and Fire resistance)

 0.95 (10% Poison resistance)

Breed Gobots: 0.17~ per use (92 Leadership of Gobots per use)

I'm not including Initiation in there, which makes Breed Gobots slightly deceptive since typically Chosha will alternate summoning Gobots and Initiating.

Regardless, notice that Chosha break through the 1:1 ratio if they spawn Gobots even once before taking damage. Mind, Chosha and Gobots are both weak to Physical and Fire, ie the main damage type of units and the Mage's preferred Spell damage type until fairly late in most runs, so it's more realistic most of the time to say they break the 1:1 ratio by their second spawning if they take little to no damage, but for Poison and/or Magic-focused forces Chosha are going to slow the battle a lot.

Black Unicorn

0.86~ (150 Leadership, 130 Health)

 1.14~ (25% Magic Resistance)

Same as last game.

Bear

0.85 (70 Leadership, 60 Health)

 0.77~ (-10% Fire resistance)

Unchanged from The Legend, just like Ancient Bears. Which in practice means they're less appealing, since so much else got better.

Barbarian

0.85 (35 Leadership, 30 Health)

Resistant to Cold: 1.14~ (25% resistance to cold damage)

Same as The Legend.

Berserker

0.85 (35 Leadership, 30 Health)

Resistant to Cold: 1.14~ (25% resistance to cold damage)

Also unchanged from The Legend, durability-wise.

Guard Droid

0.83 (120 Leadership, 100 Health)

 1.04 (20% Physical resistance)

 0.55 (-50% Magic resistance)

 4.15 (80% Poison resistance)

A brand-new unit that's a very, very good tank for Physical and Poison damage. A lot of that is tied up in the Droid-specific repair options, really, but even their raw numbers are pretty solid... so long as their Magic weakness isn't being picked on, anyway.

Devilfish

0.83 (12 Leadership, 10 Health)

 1.05~ (20% Fire resistance)

Same as in The Legend, durability-wise.

Really? Not even 1 more Health? Poor Devilfish.

Horseman

0.83 (180 Leadership, 150 Health)

/ 1.03~ (20% Physical and Fire resistance)

Better than base Horsemen in The Legend, but worse off than Iron Fist-backed Horsemen, for whatever that's worth. They also just don't stand out as much with so many solid alternatives existing for tanking Fire and/or Physical damage, even if you also want something decently fast.

Demon

0.8 (300 Leadership, 240 Health)

 0.88 (10% Physical resistance)

 1.6 (50% Fire resistance)

Summon Demons: 0.186 to 0.3 (90 Leadership of Demons-the-species: 0.186 is Demonesses, while 0.3 is Cerberi)

Same ratio, but fewer Demons with more Health individually. An unusual change.

Summon Demons has been straight buffed, always doing the equivalent of its old high roll on Leadership, and Demonesses have more Health which further raises its minimum.

Repair Droid

0.8 (80 Leadership, 64 Health)

 1.0 (20% Physical resistance)

 0.51~ (-50% Magic resistance)

 4.0 (80% Poison resistance)

Repair: 0.5 per use (40 Health per 80 Leadership per use)

Repair+Neatness: 0.65 per use (52 Health per 80 Leadership per use)

Repair Droids are ridiculous from a health efficiency standpoint. Yes, you need to split the stack or bring Guard Droids, but if you use Repair once, no Neatness boosting, and I assume you're facing Fire and/or Astral damage attackers, that's still a 1.3 ratio! Assume Physical damage attackers you're guiding to attack Droids, and it's more than 1.5. Throw in Neatness being maxed, and it's roughly a 2.0 ratio.

That's if you use Repair once.

They're pretty nuts!

Imp

0.8 (40 Leadership, 32 Health)

 1.6 (50% Fire resistance)

25% tougher than the prior game. Nice. Particularly worth noting is that with Scoffer Imps having gotten a much smaller boost, Imps are no longer so dramatically the glass cannon choice out of the two. They're still the glass cannon choice, but overall the durability difference isn't liable to be the decisive factor in which you use.

Fire Dragonfly

0.8 (10 Leadership, 8 Health)

 1.14~ (30% Fire resistance)

A pretty decent boost in their overall durability, even if their Leadership has gone up a point in the process.

Still not exactly great at soaking hits, not even Fire damage hits.

Wolf

0.8 (30 Leadership, 24 Health)

 0.72 (-10% Fire resistance)

Still largely worse than Werewolf Elves, but at least now they're not a miserable 0.5. 0.8 is a respectable level of durability, where in The Legend an alarming number of ranged units had better ratios than Wolves.

Brontor

0.78 (230 Leadership, 180 Health)

 0.7 (-10% Fire resistance)

Rugged Scales: 1.56 (50% damage from assorted ranged attacks)

Reminder that Brontors don't have the Fire weakness when Burrowed.

Executioner

0.77 (360 Leadership, 280 Health)

 0.85~ (10% Physical resistance)

 1.54 (50% Fire resistance)

Less efficient t tanking than Demons-the-unit, even before factoring in the summoning access on Demons-the-unit.

Which is slightly awkward since both units have Furious and so you theoretically want them both in the thick of things, taking hits.

Ancient Vampire (Human form)

0.77 (180 Leadership, 140 Health)

 1.54 (50% Poison resistance)

A modest bump in performance.

Like Vampires, you probably don't keep them in this form much, mind, but still.

Lake Dragonfly

0.77 (9 Leadership, 7 Health)

 1.1 (30% Magic resistance)

Jumping from 0.66 to 0.77 doesn't sound like a lot, but it does a surprising amount to make Lake Dragonflies more relevant, instead of being wiped out before they get a chance to attack.

They're probably less appealing in player hands in practice because of things like Grand Strategy, mind, but enemy Lake Dragonflies are at least less trivial to delete.

Demonologist

0.76 (210 Leadership, 160 Health)

/ 1.01~ (25% resistance to Magic and Fire)

Demonic Beasts: 0.38-1.0 per use (105 to 210 Leadership of Demons, Executioners, or Cerberi per use)

Archmage: 1.01~ (Leadership reduced to 158)

Demonic Beasts is very swingy in its random generation, but will consistently result in the Demonologist effectively bring in greater than a 1:1 ratio if the Demonologists use it even once before they take damage. Notably, Demons-the-unit can potentially summon units themselves, extending the durability even further, and resistances are relevant: against a Fire damage force, double the Demonic Beasts ratio, for example. So... Demonologists bring a lot of Health to their side for their Leadership value, especially in battles that last long enough for them to use Demonic Beasts more than once.

I considered including Thread of Life, but its actual performance depends on Magic resistance and Attack/Defense comparisons, so how much Health you get depends on what you're fighting and what you target.

Demonologists also outright break past 1:1 with maxed Archmage before accounting for their leeching, resistances, and access to Demonic Beasts. It's kinda ridiculous!

Thorn Hunters

0.75 (8 Leadership, 6 Health)

 1.5 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.37 (-100% Fire resistance)

Sowing: 0.1875 to 0.56 (2-4 Leadership of Thorn Warriors or Thorn Hunters. 0.56 is a high roll of Thorn Warriors, 0.1875 is a low roll of Thorn Hunters)

Still the frailer of your possible Thorn spawns, but much better meatshields when summoned than in The Legend.

They're also not quite as trivial to delete with Fire Spells when they're enemies. All-around, they're a lot more likely to put in some work.

Moderately Negative Ratios

Units below 75%, but no lower than 50%.

Royal Griffin

0.73 (300 Leadership, 220 Health)

 1.46 (50% Magic resistance)

 0.65~ (-10% Fire resistance)

Heavenly Guard: 0.27~ (Summons 150 Leadership of Angelic Guard per Royal Griffin)

Heavenly Guards being completely disposable and having more favorable resistances than Griffins is an important factor in why I feel Royal Griffins tend to shunt aside Griffins in utility. While a Royal Griffin's on-paper ratio is only about 1:1 vs Griffins having a base ratio of 1.12, against Magic damage the Royal Griffin is already ahead even if it doesn't summon a Heavenly Guard, and Heavenly Guard can easily add over 0.5 functional ratio at no Gold cost by soaking Physical punishment.

Griffins are at least still the superior choice for grabbing a chest on round 1, though.

Hunter

0.73 (150 Leadership, 110 Health)

This is very slightly worse than if you had Bowman Commander maxed in The Legend. As Bowman Commander as easy to justify maxing in The Legend as any class, I'd argue they're thus a bit worse off for player purposes.

They're just plain ahead as enemies, though.

Hayterant

0.73 (150 Leadership, 110 Health)

 0.91~ (20% Magic resistance)

Lay Egg's potential for semi-infinite chains is sufficiently a pain to write out I'm not going to write a specific number in the above. Suffice to say, it can approach an additional 1:1 ratio, but will never quite reach that point (This is literally the 'you can't cross the room because you cross half of it over and over' philosophical quandary, but as a game mechanic), bar the possibility of rounding favorably.  In any event, a single successful Lay Egg will result in a nearly 1.1 (That is, nearly 110%) ratio, with a good third of it in disposable summons, so Hayterants can be pretty effective meatshields if you can avoid the egg being broken before it hatches.

That's admittedly often a pretty big 'if', given how much the AI likes to target eggs and how trivial it is for many ranged units to kill the egg, but there's plenty of formations where it's decently plausible to get at least a couple of eggs laid and leveraged.

Skeleton Archer

0.71 (14 Leadership, 10 Health)

 1.42 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.63~ (-10% Fire resistance)

Bone: 2.36~ (70% resistance to arrows)

A modest bump in durability to a unit that was a bit too frail. Much appreciated.

Troll

0.71 (1100 Leadership, 780 Health)

/ 0.83~ (15% Physical and Fire resistance)

/ (Daylight): 1.01~ (30% Physical and Fire resistance)

Yep, in daylight Trolls actually exceed a 1:1 ratio for Physical and Fire damage purposes, avoiding the usual Level 5 unit phenomenon of having horrible Health for their Leadership.

Mind, you'd rather use them in the dark until fairly late in the game thanks to Regeneration helping to extend their longevity so much, but this is a big part of why early Trolls are excellent tanks: because not only are they per-head tough, but the stack's total durability is actually going to be higher than many lower-Level unit stacks, even when ignoring that they also have high Defense!

Good tank.

Inquisitor

0.7 (100 Leadership, 70 Health)

 0.77 (10% Magic resistance)

Archmage: 0.93 (Leadership reduced to 75)

+Archmage: 1.01~

Resurrection: 0.07 (7 Healing per 100 Leadership)

Resurrection+Archmage: 0.09~ (7 Healing per 75 Leadership)

Substantially better than even when backed by Archmage in The Legend. And if you are playing a Mage in Orcs on the March and do bother to max out Archmage, even better than that! Indeed, counting their healing, a fully Archmage-backed Inquisitor stack is de-facto bringing in more than a 1-to-1 rate of Leadership to Health to your army, so long as you assume you use the full healing/resurrection before any Inquisitors die.

Archmage

0.7 (200 Leadership, 140 Health)

 1.4 (50% Magic resistance)

Archmage: 0.93 (Leadership reduced to 150)

+Archmage: 1.86

Much tougher, enough so that even without Archmage-the-Skill they're noticeably more able to tank damage than The Legend Archmages fully backed by Archmage-the-Skill.

They're also actually quite respectable at tanking Magic damage, which can be situationally nice. And of course they still have Magic Shield to enhance the tanking ability of (almost) any unit you like.

Necromancer

0.7 (200 Leadership, 140 Health)

 0.77~ (10% Magic resistance)

 1.4 (50% Poison resistance)

Archmage: 0.93 (Leadership reduced to 150)

+Archmage: 1.03

+Archmage: 1.86

Same as ever, except Archmage has a more profound effect but is class-exclusive. (Not to mention Orcs on the March-exclusive) As various other frail caster units have gotten tougher, Necromancers actually stand out from the crowd less, which is a good thing, but they're still very, very solid units.

I'm not recalculating the necromantic potential, but it's overall stronger as well since many Undead are themselves tougher.

Orc Chieftain

0.7 (1200 Leadership, 850 Health)

 0.87~ (20% Physical resistance)

/ 0.77~ (10% Poison and Fire resistance)

I could list Predator, but I don't see much reason to, given it involves taking casualties to get the healing. The primary point of its healing is to use disposable units to protect the harder-to-replace Orc Chieftain, making it a bit moot how efficient it is, and a pain to calculate anyway, and if you're using it for the second-turn effect, then you really don't care about the healing efficiency per se.

Otherwise, Orc Chieftains are very solid at soaking punishment by the standards of a Level 5 unit, and nicely enough you have pretty decent odds of getting access to a source early enough for their per-head durability to also be very appreciated.

Ogre

0.68 (1000 Leadership, 680 Health)

// 0.75~ (10% Physical/Poison/Fire resistance)

They're very slightly tougher than in The Legend. Very slightly. Enough so you could be forgiven for thinking they hadn't gained any durability.

It doesn't help that for durability purposes they're clearly just worse than Orc Chieftains. You're unlikely to want an Ogre specifically for tanking purposes.

Bowman

0.68 (50 Leadership, 34 Health)

Bowmen are better off than their The Legend iteration from an early to midgame perspective, but compared to a maxed Bowman Commander-backed iteration they're actually worse off, albeit only a little bit. Mind, Quickdraw gives them solid offensive support, so it's not all bad, but if you feel like your Bowman die a little easier in Armored Princess, this is why: because they do.

Gorguana

0.66 (120 Leadership, 80 Health)

 0.73~ (10% Magic resistance)

 0.82~ (20% Poison resistance)

 0.59~ (-10% Fire resistance)

Rugged Scales: 1.32 (Halved damage from assorted ranged attacks)

Gorguana durability is decent enough for a ranged unit -we still have plenty to ranged units to cover further down- and is outright impressive anytime Rugged Scales is actually pertinent. Pretty nice!

Assassin

0.66 (150 Leadership, 100 Health)

 0.88 (25% Poison resistance) 

For a melee unit, this is pretty sad, but of course Assassins have No Retaliation, Backstab, and good bas Speed, so the player can get a lot of use of them without necessarily risking their hide.

In AI hands, that poor ratio is a much harsher limitation. Aside the cognitive load of having to avoid giving them a Backstab opportunity on something I don't want being Poisoned, I tend to fin enemy Assassins a bit of a relief to encounter, since they die so quickly.

Alchemist

0.65 (260 Leadership, 170 Health)

 0.86~ (25% Poison resistance)

Around 50% more durable than before, no qualifiers, even with their Leadership having been bumped up 10 points.

That said, I've never seen an extremely early Alchemist source comparable to The Legend's source in the Marshan Swamp, so I don't think it's possible to get quite as impressive of tanking capacity out of them in Armored Princess.

Goblin

0.65 (40 Leadership, 26 Health)

A modest boost in ratio compared to The Legend, as is typical of Armored Princess.

Priest

0.64 (50 Leadership, 32 Health)

 0.7~ (10% Magic resistance)

Archmage: 0.84~ (Leadership reduced to 38)

+Archmage: 0.93~

Healing: 0.2 (10 Healing per 50 Leadership)

Healing+Archmage: 0.26~ (10 Healing per 38 Leadership)

Archmage at Rank 3 rounds up the Leadership from a hypothetical 37.5 to 38, giving slightly worse results than one might hope.

Even so, Priests are moderately mor solid at surviving compared to The Legend, and you're more likely to get the opportunity to get decent value out of their heal into the early midgame instead of only in the extreme early game. Their base improvement in durability is in fact so high that it barely hurts them that Archmage is no longer available to all three classes: 0.64 is only very slightly worse than the 0.65 ratio Priests arrived at with maxed Archmage.

Cannoneer

0.63 (220 Leadership, 140 Health)

 0.7~ (10% Fire resistance)

Better than in The Legend, but still one of the frailer units around in spite of decent per-head durability.

Notably, Catapults are now behind them for base durability.

Elf

0.62 (80 Leadership, 50 Health)

Strictly the same as ever, but with no Bowman Commander in practice they're effectively frailer for player purposes.

Actually, they're effectively frailer in AI hands as well, since the player's ability to output damage with Spells and Rage is a lot better.

Demoness

0.62 (160 Leadership, 100 Health)

 1.24 (50% Fire resistance)

A bit over a 20% increase in bulk. Not enough to radically change how they behave, but they're a bit more practical to use in melee combat.

Catapult

0.61 (130 Leadership, 80 Health)

 0.4~ (-50% Fire resistance)

Adrenaline Level 3:  0.48~ (Fire resistance rises to -20%)

Catapults are actually frailer than in The Legend (A rarity in the transition to Armored Princess), ratio-wise, with the only caveat being they're not always horribly vulnerable to Fire damage.

They're still overall worse than Cannoneers for Keeper fight utility, though, and I'd argue this is more so in Armored Princess.

Bone Dragon

0.6 (1300 Leadership, 790 Health)

 0.66 (10% Physical resistance)

 1.2 (50% Poison resistance)

Bone: 2.0 (70% resistance to arrows)

A decent bump in Bone Dragon durability, which is appreciated. They really were too frail in The Legend. They're actually one of the bulkier Level 5 units now!

Pirate Ghost

0.6 (50 Leadership, 30 Health)

/ 1.2 (50% Physical and Poison resistance)

/ 0.42 (-30% Magic and Fire resistance)

Better ratio than Ghosts and Cursed Ghosts... except wait, those leech, so in practice this is only true against enemies they can't leech from. One that don't do Fire or Magic damage, in fact.

There's uses for Pirate Ghosts, of course, but tanking is not a job you're liable to select them for.

Blood Shaman

0.59 (270 Leadership, 160 Health)

Archmage: 0.78~ (Leadership reduced to 203)

Like Predator, I'm not listing Goblin Blood even though it heals the Blood Shaman, because you're not using it for the healing, except maybe as an opportunistic bonus.

Incidentally, Archmage Rank 3 rounds up from a hypothetical 202.5 to 203. Still helps their ratio a lot.

Beholder

0.57 (140 Leadership, 80 Health)

This is still frail, but it's something like an 80% increase in their durability, so they're much, much less frail. Makes enemy group less trivial to annihilate, and makes them more appealing for the player, especially if you get access in the relatively early game.

Giant

0.56 (1600 Leadership, 900 Health)

No better. They got Defense, admittedly, but they die just as easily to Spells and whatnot as in The Legend. With most Level 5 units getting tougher and damage output overall up, Giants are kind of frailer in practice!

Angelic Guard

0.55 (60 Leadership, 33 Health)

 1.1 (50% Physical resistance)

 0.73~ (25% Magic resistance)

 0.5 (-10% Fire resistance)

Notice that against Physical attackers, Angelic Guard break a 1:1 ratio. That means against Physical-only armies, it's accurate to treat Royal Griffins as having a ratio of more than 1.25, where regular Griffins only hit 1.23 and unavoidably suffer actual casualties.

Against other damage types it's not nearly so clear-cut, but against Physical foes Royal Griffins really are the better tank.

Ancient Vampire (Bat form)

0.55 (180 Leadership, 100 Health)

 1.1 (50% Poison resistance)

A 10% boost over their previous ratio. As the human form has risen more than that, switching to bat form is effectively more of a sacrifice than in The Legend.

Like, whatever, you'll still do it for the resurrection-leeching, but it's worth pointing out, specially since the AI is very bad at the 'which form to use' decision process.

Evil Beholder

0.55 (180 Leadership, 100 Health)

Not nearly as dramatic a bump in durability as Beholders, being less than a 50% boost. Still appreciated, given Evil Beholders were agonizingly frail.

Adult Gobot

0.53 (16 Leadership, 8 Health)

/ 0.47~ (-10% Physical and Fire resistance)

 0.58~ (10% Poison resistance)

Tougher than Gobots, but still quite frail, and they lose Division.

Ghost

0.5 (80 Leadership, 40 Health)

/ 1.0 (50% Physical/Poison resistance)

Same as before. That's fair; Ghosts were a top-tier unit in The Legend, they didn't need a boost.

Tirex

0.5 (2000 Leadership, 1000 Health)

 0.58~ (15% Physical resistance)

 0.45 (-10% Fire resistance)

Rugged Scales: 1.0 (50% resistance to assorted ranged attacks)

A Tirex's true durability is a bit difficult to rate due to the mechanics of Predator and Ravenous allowing them to absorb a lot of punishment, but only if they can consistently get corpse access before suffering a casualty. As such, they can get fairly obscene ratios when fighting summon spam armies, and tend to impress at low Leadership values, but as Leadership rises they tend to only impress against summon spam, in terms of durability.

Terrify also throws in a randomized and Level-influenced element, where a Tirex can potentially attack massive stacks without taking damage and also while causing them to refuse to attack the Tirex on their own turn... but only if they're low-Level, not immune to mental effects, and the RNG cooperates.

As such, the above ratios are useful enough when eg thinking in terms of 'how easily do Tirex die to Spells?' but are more an unreliable floor when it comes to unit-on-unit combat. That's always true of these posts, but Tirex are one of the more extreme examples, where their true durability can be a lot higher than the above numbers suggest.

Vampire (Bat form)

0.5 (80 Leadership, 40 Health)

 1.0 (50% Poison resistance)

 0.45 (-10% Fire resistance)

Unchanged, but since the human form is tougher this is effectively a bigger sacrifice, just like Ancient Vampires.

Severely Negative Ratios

Anything below 50%. Units down here die horrifically quickly to Rage and Spells unless resistances save them.

Like in The Legend, this is primarily dominated by units that are, one way or another, not too hampered by their horrible ratio.

Engineer

0.47 (380 Leadership, 180 Health)

 0.55 (15% Fire resistance)

Create Droid: 0.21~ to 0.26~, twice (100-120 Leadership of Guard Droids or Repair Droids per 380 Leadership of Engineers, twice)

Create Droid+Neatness: 0.27~ to 0.34~, twice (130-156 Leadership now)

Repair: 0.23~ twice (88 Health per 380 Leadership, twice)

Repair+Neatness: 0.32~ twice (125~ Health per 380 Leadership, twice)

Notice that just summoning two Droids is over a 0.4 ratio, and can in fact be over a 0.5 ratio, before Neatness, and with no Repair usage. Also remember that Droids resist Physical damage and heavily resist Poison damage, so the Droids will often have their ratios go still farther. Oh, and if the Engineer makes Repair Droids, their slightly worse base ratio will be more than made up for by their own Repair access.

Altogether, a well-used Engineer can easily result in over a 1:1 ratio of disposable meatshield value even without Neatness ranks: just low-rolling Repair Droids and Repairing them with the Engineer is about a 1:1 all by itself, even if I assume they only tank Fire or Astral damage and don't use their own Repair Talent! The Engineer is outcompeted in this role in extended battles by eg Royal Thorns, but if you expect to complete a battle relatively quickly, Engineers are probably the best source of free meatshields in the game... and even in longer battles, they're plenty good at that job.

That's all ignoring their re-usable Blind, which I can't directly calculate but has obvious ability to simply prevent damage from occurring.

Archdemon

0.47 (1600 Leadership, 766 Health)

 0.58~ (20% Physical resistance)

 0.52~ (10% Magical resistance)

 2.35 (80% Fire resistance)

Noticeably tougher than in The Legend (About 20% more Health for the Leadership), though still on the frail side.

Cursed Ghosts

0.46 (130 Health, 60 Health)

/ 0.92 (50% Physical/Poison resistance)

Same as ever.

Cyclops

0.46 (1400 Leadership, 650 Health)

/ 0.65~ (30% Physical and Fire resistance)

 1.15 (60% Poison resistance)

Cyclops remain reliant on their resistances and high Defense to get a decent ratio, but aren't quite so bad off as in The Legend on this point. (About 25% more Health for the Leadership)

They got hugely buffed in areas this post isn't touching on, too.

Goblin Shaman

0.46 (130 Leadership, 60 Health)

Archmage: 0.61~ (Leadership reduced to 98)

Their terrible Health ratio is one of the main reasons Goblin Shaman usually aren't hugely infuriating to fight, since it's often relatively easy to wipe them out before they act. Unless you're fighting a hugely oversized stack or something.

Maxed Archmage Rank 3 rounds up from a hypothetical 97.5 to 98, for reference.

Red Dragon

0.42 (2000 Leadership, 870 Health)

 0.49~ (15% Physical resistance)

 0.6 (30% Magic resistance) 

 2.1 (80% Fire resistance)

A small, but non-trivial boost to their ratio. They're still very easy to kill with Spells and Rage that don't do Fire damage, mind, since it's only about a 10% increase in their ratio, but still.

Emerald Green Dragons

0.42 (1900 Leadership, 800 Health)

 0.46~ (10% Physical resistance)

 0.6 (30% Magic resistance) 

 0.84 (50% Fire resistance)

Another one of those rare cases of a unit having their ratio go down in the transition to Armored Princess, as while Emerald Green Dragons gained 100 Health, they also had their Leadership spike by 300, and their resistances are unchanged so those don't help. They did gain 11 Defense, so in unit fights it's not so clear-cut, but for Rage and Spell purposes they're very slightly easier to kill for a given amount of Leadership. It's a tiny amount, mind, but still interesting that it happened.

Black Dragon

0.4 (2500 Leadership, 1000 Health)

 0.5 (20% Physical resistance)

/ 2.0 (80% Magic and Fire resistance) 

Between gaining 25% more Health and getting a slight bump in their Physical resistance, Black Dragon vulnerability to Rage and what Spells bypass their Spell immunity is not nearly so dramatic as in The Legend... well, ignoring that Spells that bypass Spell immunity are more common, and that Rage is vastly more effective. Still, Black Dragons are much less swingy: in The Legend, Black Dragons were uniquely horrifying for the Mage, while for the Warrior and Paladin that were absolutely other threats that were comparable or worse to fight. In Armored Princess, Black Dragons are a notable threat for anyone, albeit overall still a bit more of a problem for the Mage.

They're also more meaningfully useful for the player, which is nice. Enemy Heroes with good damage Spells are more common, for one.

Gobot

0.4 (15 Leadership, 6 Health)

/ 0.36 (-10% Physical and Fire resistance)

 0.44 (10% Poison resistance)

Yeah. Gobots are frail. Division can add up to potentially 50% to their ratio, so they can potentially achieve a 0.6 ratio, but it'll usually end up more like 0.5 or the like. Which is still frail by even ranged unit standards.

Faun

0.38 (60 Leadership, 23 Health)

 0.42 (10% Magic resistance)

 0.34~ (-10% Fire resistance)

Faun's Magic: 0.2 twice

Even if you assume you always fully leverage Faun's Magic in a battle, this is a total ratio of 0.78, which doesn't really impress, and it demands you're specifically using Plants and specifically having them soak hits and then the Faun manages to get in reach to heal them using its point-blank resurrection Talent. Inquisitors end up at a total ratio of 0.77, and they can work with anything living and can perform the resurrection from anywhere on the battlefield.

Fauns are pretty under-tuned, even if I like the idea behind them.

Rune Mage

0.22 (2000 Leadership, 450 Health)

20 Mind Runes: 0.375 (Health rises to 750)

 0.44 (50% Magic resistance)

Archmage: 0.3 (Leadership reduced to 1500)

Archmage+20 Mind Runes: 0.5

+Archmage: 0.6

+Archmage+20 Mind Runes: 1.0

Revive: 0.05 (100 healing per 2000 Leadership)

Revive+Archmage: 0.06~ (100 healing per 1500 Leadership)

Revive+20 Mind Runes: 0.2 (400 healing per 2000 Leadership)

Revive+Archmage+20 Mind Runes: 0.265~ (400 healing per 1500 Leadership)

I haven't bothered to list Illusion, because its effectiveness will be determined by the Leadership-to-Health ratio of whatever unit gets selected, making it impossible to provide meaningful numbers here per se.

I'm also not going to calculate every single resistance boost Rune Mages can get based on highest unspent Talent Runes. This is already horrible unwieldy and a pain.

If you don't have unspent Mind Runes and don't have Archmage ranks, Rune Mages are the worst ratio in the entire game, and indeed the entire series, at a bit better than 2/3rds the horrendous Black Dragon ratio in The Legend. And unlike Black Dragons, they don't have two 80% resistances or immunity to Spells. Revive is also horrendously weak at base; it can still be useful as a cleanse, but if you want actual resurrection value, Inquisitors are better value.

If you are able and willing to leave 20 Mind Runes unspent, Rune Mages are much better off, and if you're also a Mage with Archmage maxed, they turn surprisingly solid for being a ranged Level 5 unit. Against Magic damage, they outright have a 1:1 ratio in those circumstances! Before using Revive or Illusion! And they even have shockingly high per-head HP with 20 unspent Mind Runes, making them a surprisingly good heal-recipient tank in the midgame.

A unit very heavily defined by whether you're able and willing to leave Talent Runes unspent or not.

--------------------------------

And that's the last Armored Princess extra.

If you're reading this in the intended order, you presumably wish to move on to Warriors of the North now.

See you then.