Note that this is for the base game, not CoM. Aside from a couple notable exceptions, Uncommon summons largely feel like a step back from their Common counterparts - the increase in casting cost and mana upkeep feels significantly higher than the increase in power. Note that this is one of many things that CoM fixes, and one of many reasons why I highly recommend playing with it.

Also note that other factors like enchantments are considered but not assumed - certain summons can be much improved with certain setups or combos, but you need to be in a position to pull that off first. Summons that are always good > summons that are good when paired with the right spells.

Finally note that like last time, combat summons aren't included because they're functionally very different from overland summons. They share a different purpose and as such aren't really competing (unless mana is very, very scarce).

1. Shadow Demons. No surprise here right? Flying, reasonable ranged damage output, and the ability to transfer planes at will would already make this one of the better summons, but regeneration is just ridiculous. The game is effectively over once you can start cranking these out.

2. Basilisk. Groundbound and fairly dependent on enemy RES means that the Basilisk isn't quite on the level of the Shadow Demons, but it's still an unbelievably powerful unit that can solo entire enemy armies. Walking is a pain but it's movement is good and if you can cast Basilisk then there's at least a reasonable chance of you having Water Walking. (Fun fact: Waterwalking, Pathfinding Basilisks is generally a stronger 11 Book Green rush than Gorgons).

3. Night Stalker. Powerful unit but easily hard-countered - will die very quickly to anything with Illusions and/or Death Immunity, so don't use this against other Black wizards. Generally overshadowed by Shadow Demons but if you don't roll that spell Stalkers are a really good consolation prize. Bonus points for being excellent at cheesing the AI, if that's your thing.

There's a big, big gap here. The above three summons are significantly better than anything else this level throws at you.

4. Fire Giant.An underwhelming unit but what it lacks in power it makes up for in price. It's the cheapest of all the Uncommons and combines two movement with decent if unremarkable ranged and melee damage. If you're up against low-tier normal units most Common summons will be more cost-effective but they trade fairly well against things like Dragon Turtles and Stag Beetles. Also comes with Mountaineering, which can be paired with Forestry for No-Name Brand Pathfinding.

5. Doom Bat. Horribly weak for the price, but flying at 4 movement gives it some value. Its inherent Immolation effect will annihilate Spearmen and Swordsmen but the unit doesn't do great against anything stronger. Useful for recon, sniping poorly defended cities, and/or if you plan to let your combat spells do most of the damage.

6. Unicorns. Teleport makes them excellent at ganking frail units like Magicians and low-level heroes, and the stack-wide Res buff can be nice. Unfortunately ganking frail units isn't really a winning strategy against the AI, meaning that their use in your armies is limited (while unfortunately still sometimes being frustrating to fight against).

7. Chimeras. The priciest summon on this list, Chimeras truly do not merit their price tag. They're reasonably powerful units (though nothing close to Shadow Demons and Basilisk, both of which are cheaper) but unless you're swimming in mana and have nothing better to cast they aren't worth it.

8. Giant Spiders. Pathetic combatants, Giant Spiders have one thing going for them and that's their Web ability. While this has some very limited potential, particularly because it bypasses Node dispelling, such cases are far too rare to justify the casting cost, even if you somehow don't have Web yourself. Moreover the Spiders themselves are so weak that once they've launched their single Web, they're effectively useless for the rest of the battle.

9. Gargoyles. Weird unit without any real role or niche. Stoning Immunity seems like it could be nice against Green wizards but even with Stoning out of the picture Gargs are still too weak to win against anything but Cockatrices. They're tanky-ish so ostensibly their purpose is to just survive while you pelt the enemy with damage spells? But at the time you get them your skill will be too low to really take advantage of that.

10. Cockatrices. Stoning is a really powerful ability, so it's a truly remarkable achievement that the Cockatrice manages to still be so weak. Because it's a touch attack, and because Cockatrices have such abysmal stats, while they have a decent chance of killing the enemy they're almost guaranteed to die in the process. This gives them a niche as suicide bombers that could be really interesting if they weren't so unbelievably pricey. As it stands you're dumping a lot of mana into a just okay-ish chance of killing a powerful unit. There are more reliable and cost-effective ways of killing that Very Rare unit.


I will say that a couple of these summons, Doom Bat and Unicorn, would be much better if MoM were a multiplayer game. Human players tend to leave Spearmen-only militia garrisons in cities that are far from the front lines - making Doom Bat backstabs a much more viable strategy - and tend to play more aggressively with their heroes - making Unicorn ganking similarly more viable. The fact that the AI tends to spam Halberds in every city and leave their heroes sitting in the Fortress the entire game reduces the potential of those units considerably.

I mostly agree with your list, I think.

Shadow Demons and Basilisks are definitely the cream of this crop. Regeneration, flying, and plane shift probably edge out the extra move on the basilisk, but it is a close call. If you have an answer for the magic ranged attack, shadow demons don't really have anything else, but even if you have an answer for the stone gaze a basilisk can still chew your face off.

I can't rank Night Stalkers because I actually don't have much experience with them. The Death Gaze could be quite powerful, considering how nice the stone gaze is for Basilisks, but they don't have a good way to recover from damage.

Fire Giants are pretty meh, but they do have two rocks, two move, and they can contribute to path finding. Cheap is also good.

I'd probably move Chimeras above Doom Bats. Bats just aren't durable enough and Chaos gives no support in that area. Chimeras have much better actual fighting ability. I'm not sure where I'd place Unicorns in that trio; they are surprisingly tanky for their stats and the teleport can help them jump ranged units before the rest of your army gets too torn up.

Gargoyles are held back by lacking the attack value to make good use of their defense.

Spiders are basically support units. As you say, they don't have the body to handle much fighting, but they can shred low resistance units.

The -3 on that stone touch just begs for finding some way to use cockatrices, but they just don't have the survivability to last through the required exchanges of melee. It makes me a little sad.

To me, the one saving grace Doom Bats have (and I don't think I mentioned this in the actual post, either, oddly enough) is that they're an excellent mop up unit. They're possibly the only Uncommon unit worth summoning late game simply because their high speed allows you to blitzkrieg the world with them once you reach a point where you can win battles with your combat magic alone. This isn't a huge point in their favour because it's fairly niche and in any case "Its biggest use is when you've basically already won" isn't a major selling point for anything but it's still better than many of the clunkers at this tier.

I really agree with Gargoyles having too little attack. You think they have potential because they're so tanky but in practice because they do so little damage it doesn't actually change the outcome of the fight: They still lose, it just takes longer. Yeah exactly and it's a real shame. Like the obvious use that comes to mind for them is suicide bombing VR units but that just doesn't really work out. Of the VRs, most of them can deal with Cockatrices before stoning even comes into play, either through ranged attacks (Demon Lord, Djinn) or through having higher movement and strike-first attacks (Sky Drake, Death Knights). Others simply have high enough resistance that they're completely immune (Colossus, Archangel). That leaves the Great Wyrm, Great Drake, Hydras and Behemoth. Great Wyrm is tricky because it will very likely resist and besides your Cockatrices can't catch it anyway. Great Drake is also dodgy - you have to be careful with your positioning so that you don't get immediately incinerated by its breath. Hydras are out because they're technically nine figures, so not a great target for Stoning Touch (Stoning Gaze, on the other hand...). So Cockatrices might be kinda sorta good against Behemoths, but Behemoths are probably the least scary of all VR summons.

Meanwhile four castings of Cracks Call (plus one casting of Web, if necessary) will run you like a third of the upfront mana cost (and of course none of the upkeep cost) and be far more likely to kill.

They don't actually fare too much better against Rares, either. Because touch attacks don't fare as well against multi-figure units, you wouldn't want to pit them against Gorgons. They do have potential against Wraiths but again, multi-figure so it's a real tossup. Storm Giant and even probably Efreet will blow them away, Chaos Spawn will vaporize them with Gazes before Stoning Touch even gets applied, and Stone Giants are just straight up immune. Which leaves Angels - again, not exactly the deadliest summon of the tier.

So if you sent two Cockatrices against a single enemy Wraiths, you have an okay-ish chance of taking them out, and that's technically a cost-effective trade. However mana is in much shorter supply for the human than it is for the AI (at least on higher levels) so it still hurts you a lot more than them.

I just don't know if there's a way to make Cockatrices viable.

I agree that their speed is the main good thing about them. I'd more call them scouts for Chaos, due to just how fast they can cover map with 4 move and flying sight range. If you get bogged down in a war and have to stop scouting, then you can pick it back up again quickly with a bat or two.

I'm not sure about mop up though. If you can wipe things with just spells, then just send out whatever rando units you have in all directions while you use spells on productive things. I'm considering Regeneration, whether on a group of lizard chickens or with one or two lizard chickens to soften things up while other units finish the battle. Or possibly send them with a healer unit and retreat when all the lizard chickens are too injured to continue. Either method should get them back on their feet faster for more hunting.