Heavy Recon Vehicle

Overview
The Heavy Recon Vehicle is a premium vehicle and the only trainable unit until the 1.3 Patch that had two attack options. This unit is also one of the first units available that has. It costs.

Its primary attack is the Flame Cannon which can fire over most enemy units (Precise Fire) and has long range. It has a listed range of 4, but targets in the 1-2 range will take full damage and tapers off. The attack will go beyond its listed range of 4 and affect a target 5 rows away, but the damage is so minimal it is negligible.

The Flame Cannon attack can also apply a Damage-over-Time effect that does considerable damage. However, the weapon can only fire at targets directly in front of it, and its meager damage will render the attack less useful in higher levels. Battlefield positioning is important if the player wants to make the most of this unit.

The second weapon is the Rocket Pod which will target every other square with its Checker Strike attack. This can be fired once before triggering an 8-turn reload. It's great for softening units up, combined with other Heavy Recon Vehicles and/or Rocket Trucks, they can clear the battlefield quickly.

An attack option, Triple Strike, can be researched at Rank 3. This attack uses half the ammunition of Checker Strike, allowing the Heavy Recon to attack twice before reloading. This attack concentrates damage to a single square, and splashing out to adjacent squares (for potentially full damage!), and even more splash damage to targets caught in the outer edges of this 5-square radius attack.

While not as consistent in dealing damage, Triple Strike's ability to concentrate damage to a target, affect potentially more targets, and shoot twice before reloading makes this attack a worthwhile upgrade. Note that the Heavy Recon only has 2 ability slots, so it would be wiser to replace the Checker Strike attack with the Triple Strike.

The Heavy Recon Vehicle is a powerful unit, since it functions exactly like the Rocket Truck, but available much earlier, costs Nanopods and has. The armor enhances survivability compared to the Rocket Truck, allowing it to take several hits even at higher levels. Its Flame Cannon attack isn't as powerful as the Firedrake, but having a second attack option gives this unit more utility on the battlefield and allows it to defend itself even if all of its rockets are spent. As such, its Point Value (PV) is considerably high for a unit of its level, so players fielding this unit in PvP will tend to face higher-tiered units.

Attacks
Flame Cannon=

Rocket Pod=

Trivia

 * The Heavy Recon seems to be based on a variant of the Stryker family of vehicles, the.
 * In the front view the Rocket Pod firing animation releases a backblast while in the player view there is none as it does not feature holes in the back to release the backblast

Updates
2.2 Patch
 * Unit Value increased: Rank 1: 12→13, Rank 2: 13→15, Rank 3: 17→19, Rank 4: 19→24, Rank 5: 21→26

2.0 Patch
 * Unit Value increased: Rank 3: 14→17, Rank 4: 16→19, Rank 5: 18→21

1.5 hotfix
 * Unit Value increased, adjusted for PvP balancing: Rank 1: 9→12, Rank 2: 11→13

1.3 Patch
 * Weapon upgrade option, Triple Strike, added.