I love undead, but was disappointed the corpse exploding take so much mana to do so little damage, and find almost no time a good one to use it.
I especially love the music of the undead and the shadow worlds. Really gets me into it. I love the sound of the game in general, though the winds of the desert is a little one-note. I love the sound of the wind, but it varies little here and feels a bit mechanical.
I'm also a big fan of the Orcs. I usually don't like melee specialists either, and have no use for the warlord because he is too slow. However, I love getting my orcs their faction's lifestealing ability. This makes their knights very formidable. The Glutton unit is slow, but you gotta love the looks of that thing, he's tough, and his swallow ability is scary.
The Dark Elves knights have lifestealing built-in and make that ability available early in the game. That's pretty huge. It's a good side all around.
The Shadow Demons have the Harvester, which is much like the Glutton but even better. When he eats a unit, he can spit out a baby. One harvester can wind up producing a slew of cheap troops over the course of a few weeks battles, replenishing your road crew and giving you something to populate your new territories with. I think Shadow Demons also have the Regeneration ability, a huge benefit that daily puts your troops back at full health.
Right now is the first I've played Syrons. I thought they would really stink, but some of their troops are very good. Their "archer" type troops fires lightning bolts which can area stun several troops at once, a huge benefit that helps keep melee units from crashing through your doors or making it to your vulnerable troops. Really powerful, much like the frostling's ability to freeze from a distance. Their Giant Warrior is a hulking brute that stuns when he hits, which can make him chop down enemies at his leisure. The Shadow Runner has double strike, which, as with the dwarf beserker unit, makes a little guy a powerful thing. The Astral Sprite has very high resistance and defense. And they have a vehicle that has Magic Relay and a speed of 40, which makes it possible to take it along and have your wizard spells usable outside your territory. I haven't caught on to what real use the changeling is yet, despite having had one or two as purchases before when playing another faction. The incarnate is terrifying in the path of destruction he leaves; not so the changeling. The Syron mounted unit, the Rider, is, if not the worst in the game, certainly close enough. He's not particularly fast and has no interesting qualities besides, well ... swimming? And shadow shifting, but who needs that?
I will say that although I like the evil races better on the whole, the good ones have access to some very good heroes.
