Let’s break it down. Here are the Scorpion Man’s stats.
Cost: 150 Wood, 25 Favour, 4 Pop spaces
HP: 500
Speed: 5.00
Hack Armour: 50%
Pierce Armour: 40%
Hack damage: 25 (Also their special is a Venomous Sting)
Well generally cheap, has average health, passable armor and reasonable hack attack. So where does the bad reputation emerge? Well that’s because compared to other non-ranged Myth Units it has the less HP which shouldn’t be a problem if its attack makes up for this.
Now the Scorpion Man’s special.
1. The Scorpion Man "poisons" a selected unit, which then loses HP gradually by itself.
2. The special attack can affect more than one unit at a time.
3. The special attack can only be ‘targeted’ on one unit at a time
4. The Scorpion Man regenerates its special attack every 12 seconds.
5. Any unit affected by the special attack will glow green
6. The Scorpion Man cannot use its special attack on heroes, myth units or villagers.
7. Any unit affected by the special attack will lose on approximately 18 HP while it is in effect.
8. The special attack lasts 10 seconds.
9. The special attack will still affect the unit(s) once the Scorpion Man is dead.
However the last point – 10. is important and is where the confusion about the Scorpion Man emerges.
10. Any human unit within 2 range of the Scorpion Man will be affected by the special attack.
So it’s a not a ‘passing on’, contagious special but rather one that relies on the units being in range. Obviously for its special to take maximum effect the Scorpion Man should be a meatshield. Its special is great because it doesn’t have a set limit on how many units it effects unlike the Frost Giant’s special but its relatively hard to control.
The Scorpion Man does well against low damage melee units, but its attack will decrease the more hack armor the unit has. Eg. vs a 46% Hack Armored Spearmen it does only 16 Hack per hit. Against ranged units, it’s a double edge sword.
1 Scorpion Man vs 5 Toxotes
Scorpion Man affects 3 toxotes with its special attack.
Scorpion Man wins in 12 seconds.
Seems good, the Scorpion Man kills them quickly. But the toxotes have dealed a powerful 386 damage to it. That's only 114 HP left! If there's no priest around, it could be killed easily by more archers or other units.
So it seems that the low HP and armour is quite an important issue. Because of this, it makes it easy for ranged units to take it out before it does too much damage.
Another note about the Scorpion Man is that it has a 2x bonus against other Myth Units. Unfortunately, it is defeated by all other Heroic MUs apart from the Scarab, Petsuchos and Manticore. You would have thought that with it's high attack, it would do well against MUs such as the Nemean Lion and Battle Boar, but once again, it comes down to its low HP and relatively low armour.
Against some heroes, it does reasonably well. The Scorpion Man defeats a Heroic Hersir, Priest and Jarl 1 on 1. Which isn't bad, but still doesn't make up for it's low HP and armour.
Scorpion Man is not an all-round unit. It excels at attacking archers with low HP, but will also receive a lot of damage because of the low pierce armour. Against low hack armoured infantry and cavalry (of which there are not many), the Scorpion Man can do quite well.
(Thanks ArtemisC. btw
)