Army Ant

Army ants (*Eciton burchellii*) are playable as gene-thief ant units in extra missions and freeplay.

## **Abilities**

Army ant mediae and majors use basic attack by biting enemies. Majors can only do this while mounting enemies.

Majors can increase the damage of nearby ants from the same colony each time they hit their attacks. The effect reverts to normal over time. It reaches a maximum value of + 45. The damage buff only applies to this ability and basic attack of other ant units. Boosted army ant mediae and majors glow redder over time, other affected ants don't glow.

## **Appearances**

Army ant mediae are playable units in:

* **The Other Foot**

* **Tug of War**

Army ant majors are playable units in:

* **The Other Foot**

* **Excavators**

* **Tug of War**

* **New Year's Feast**

Army ants are enemies in:

* **Front Line**

* **Possibly the Final Experiment**

* **Aggrandise**

* **Extremis**

* **The Other Foot**

* **Tug of War**

* **Enemy of My Enemy**

* **Beetles Rise Up!**

* **Adventure**

* **Festive Spider**

Beating **The Other Foot** on any difficulty rewards players with the counterpart colony for freeplay.

## **Notable stats**

 **Army ant media**
* *Health*: 30/ 40/ 55
* *Movement speed*: 300/ 300/ 300
* *Score*: 10/ 15/ 22
* *Harvest amount*: 15/ 15/ 15
* *Regeneration speed*: 0.1/ 0.1/ 0.1
 **Basic attack** | * *Attack damage (physical)*: 3/ 4.5/ 6
* *Attack speed*: 1.3/ 1.4/ 1.5

 **Army ant major**
* *Health*: 90/ 105/ 130
* *Movement speed*: 320/ 320/ 320
* *Score*: 30/ 42/ 54
* *Harvest amount*: 15/ 15/ 15
* *Regeneration speed*: 0.1/ 0.15/ 0.2
 **Basic attack** | * *Attack damage (physical)*: 8/ 10/ 12
 **Stat buff** | * *Attack damage (physical)*: 5/ 7.5/ 10
* *Attack speed:* 1/ 1/ 1
* *Attack damage buff per tick*: + 0.6/ + 0.8/ + 1.1
* *Attack damage debuff speed*: - 2/ - 2/ - 2
* *Buff radius*: 200/ 250/ 300

## **Trivia**

* Army ants have four castes in real life: minors, mediae, sub-majors and majors. In the game, sub-majors and mediae are grouped into just mediae because they both act as generic combat units. Either of the two models can be spawned randomly from media brood tiles.

* In real life, army ants can sting. The developers don't implement this in the game to focus on their damage supporting gimmick.

* In real life, army ant majors do release an alarm pheromone from their mandibular glands when they bite. This pheromone attracts nearby army ants to the contested area and further increases their aggression. In the game, the orange pheromone cloud was later changed to red glow for better game performance.

* Army ants have been confirmed to be unplayable as complete colonies because they don't nest underground but build bivouacs using their own bodies.

## **Community screenshots**

Army ant mediae and army ant majors (by PlayerInfinity)

## **References**

1. ↑ Tested by Antbzk64#9884 on ICS Discord (17/6/2023).
2. ↑ Confirmed by John on Discord (10/5/2021).
3. ↑ https://forum.slugdisco.com/index.php?threads/faq-frequently-asked-questions-read-before-posting.3021/
4. ↑ https://forum.slugdisco.com/index.php?threads/update-0-2023-fixes-and-languages-couple-of-minor-features.2949/
5. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm4sH7rwNzo&list=WL