Warcraft Main Character Index
Adventurers
The Alliance: Stormwind (Humans) - Lordaeron (Humans) - Gilneas (Humans/Worgen) - Kul Tiras (Humans) (Jaina Proudmoore) - Other Human Kingdoms - Ironforge (Dwarven Clans) - Gnomeregan (Gnomes) - Quel'Thalas/Telogrus Rift (High Elves and Void Elves) - Darnassus (Night Elves) - The Exodar (Draenei) - Vindicaar (Lightforged Draenei) - Mechagon (Mechagnomes)
The Horde: Orgrimmar (Orcs) - The Darkspear Tribe (Trolls) - Thunder Bluff (Tauren) - The Forsaken (Undead) - Quel'Thalas (Blood Elves) - Bilgewater Cartel (Goblins) - Thunder Totem (Highmountain Tauren) - Suramar (Nightborne) - Zandalari Empire (Zandalar Trolls) - Voldunai (Vulpera) - Other (non-playable races)
Other factions: The Old Horde/Iron Horde | The Scourge (Arthas Menethil) | Sylvanas and her followers (Sylvanas Windrunner) | Knights of the Ebon Blade | Illidan and his followers | Garrosh's Horde | Pandaria | Other mortals | The Void (The Old Gods) | The Light | Eternals | Shadowlands (Death) | The Titans (Arcane) | The Burning Legion (Fel) | The Dragonflights | Wild Gods |
Individual media: Warcraft I And II Units | Warcraft III Units | Warcraft III Heroes | Film characters | Hearthstone characters | Warcraft characters in Heroes of the Storm (Assassins - Warriors - Support)

open/close all folders

Default Playable Races

Human Alliance Units

Peasant / Militia

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/peasant_6.gif

"Ready to work."

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/militia_7.gif

A militia after being armed at a Town Hall

Peasants from Lordaeron who gather gold and lumber for the war effort. In addition to being trained in construction, they can also be turned into Militia for emergencies.

Armored But Frail: Militia have a high armor value, but still have the Peasant's low health pool. This makes them very vulnerable to AOE magical nuke spells (i.e. Shockwave, Carrion Swarm, Flame Strike)
Borrowing from the Sister Series: Peasants build like Terran SCVs, exposed to harm but able to postpone construction to perform other duties.
Glass Cannon: Militia actually have fairly high damage output (equivalent to a Footman) and attack speed, but they still only have the low health pool they did as Peasants.
Heavily Armored Mook: Despite their appearance, Militia actually have very high armor value (starts at 4 and scales to 10, just 1 less than Knights), which makes up for their low HP.
Instant Militia: In an emergency, Peasants can temporarily be turned into Militia to defend their controller’s base.
Mundane Utility: Because Militia run much faster than Peasants, it is common to use Call to Arms just to quickly send out a Peasant to a destination, whether a tavern, a nearby gold mine, or to the enemy base to rush by building towers.
Not the Intended Use: One multiplayer strategy actually involves turning peasants into militia as a Zerg Rush / building a Town Hall near their base and continuously creating and arming peasants, to the point where the ability was nerfed to only work with the starting town hall or those with at least one level of upgrade.
Simpleton Voice: They have subservient and dopey-sounding voices reflecting their statuses as lowly peasants. In a way it makes them sound like Homer Simpsons^note.
This Is Gonna Suck: They are not enthusiastic about combat, and if ordered to attack, their responses range from asking if anyone else can fight to expecting to be killed themselves.
Worker Unit: The builder and resource gatherer for the Human Alliance. Compared with other factions' workers, Peasants stand outside of the building they're currently constructing (which means that they can be attacked but are also not tied up until the building is finished), and multiple Peasants can work on the same building to speed up construction at the cost of more resources. Peasants can also be upgraded to carry back double and then triple the amount of lumber in a single trip, giving the Alliance the best innate lumber economy second to hiring a Goblin Shredder.

Footman

"Ready for action!"

While the Alliance armies have shrunk due to member nations leaving, there are still citizens who volunteer to fill out the ranks of the Footmen who form the heart of the military, clad in plate armor and brandishing their swords and shields.

Attack Reflector: Footmen using Defend have a chance of reflecting Piercing attacks back at enemy units, though they cannot reflect attacks against buildings.
Boring, but Practical: Despite being a basic unit with moderate health, Defend gives them a lot of milage against Piercing attackers by reducing damage taken and reflecting back 30% of attacks. Against units with Piercing attacks and Light or Unarmored armor, the reflected damage will be amplied by 200% and 150% respectively, a painful prospect.
Cannon Fodder: They are the basic units of the Alliance and while they are useful in early games, many players replace them with Knights when they get access to them.
Cool Helmet: Like in Warcraft II, the Footman wears a knightly helmet with a plume which has become iconic for Warcraft Humans.
Informed Equipment: Despite what their appearance might suggest, the Footman is not a Heavily Armored Mook, with only an unremarkable starting armor value of 2, especially when compared to the Militia, who has much less visible armour. However, they do at least have the highest armor of the basic units (Grunts start with 1, Ghouls and Archers have 0).
Knightly Sword and Shield: The Footmen are heroic medieval soldiers who wield swords and shields while clad in full plate, heavily invoking the image of knights even if they actually aren't.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: When using Defend, the Footmen raise their shields to deflect and reflect Piercing damage at a cost of speed.
You Have Researched Breathing: It takes research to teach the Footmen to use their kite shields.

Rifleman

"Locked an' loaded!"

The dwarfs of Khaz Modan remained loyal to the Alliance and, as such, have provided Riflemen armed with highly accurate single-shot rifles that can be aimed at ground and air targets.

Of the ranged troops of each faction, the Riflemen deal the least damage per attack, but their attacks have the benefit of being Hitscan, so they hit their target instantly on top of having the lowest cooldown time between attacks.

Anti-Air: The Riflemen can attack air units. Their low cost makes them a good response to aerial threats.
Arbitrary Gun Power: Riflemen are billed as excellent marksmen with their "Blunderbus" Longrifles. Despite their weapons being rifles, their shells inflict less damage per shot than Troll Headhunter/Berserker spears yet deal slightly more maximum damage than Archer arrows.
Bayonet Ya: Some artwork and even their Reforged models have bayonets attached to their rifles. They're just for show, since the Riflemen are still going to shoot enemies at point blank.
Bottomless Magazines: Despite their guns being single shot, the Riflemen never need to reload them. In fact, they have the fastest rate of fire of all four basic ranged units.
In the Hood: Riflemen wear hoods attached to capes.
Jack of All Stats: Riflemen have middle-of-the-road stats all around, with higher HP and damage than Footmen, decent attack speed, and of course the ability to target air units, though they're not as powerful as late-game units.
Misidentified Weapons: A blunderbuss is not a rifle-accurate weapon, being only effective at short ranges. Classifying it as a rifle is very contradictory. Blunderbusses are actually early predecessors to far superior modern shotguns.
Remember the New Guy?: Supposedly the Riflemen have been in service for hundreds of years, but this game is the first to mention of them.
Vanilla Unit: The Rifleman is a simple ranged unit without any special ability, even when fully upgraded (their Long Rifles tech only improves their range).

Knight

"I await your command."

The Knights of Lordaeron continue to fight for the Alliance as their strongest warriors. Clad in heavy armor, wielding large swords, and carried by their noble warhorses, the Knights are fast in addition to being strong.

The Artifact: Some of the Knight's voice lines reference a helmet with a visor closing over his face as he speaks or him struggling to remove it, despite him not wearing one. This is because the Knight originally wore a winged helmet before his original model was replaced with the Crusader's, a mounted hero unit for the Humans scrapped in development.
The Cavalry: In the Human Campaign, Uther arrives with a whole legion of knights to save the besieged Hearthglen from the Scourge, charging through the undead ranks and making quick work of them.
Dual Wielding: Knights carry a lance in their right hand and a sword in their left, but in the original game they only attack with their sword. In Reforged however they attack with both weapons.
Heavily Armored Mook: Knights are covered in heavy plate armor and have the highest armor of the late-game melee units.
Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Knights don't wear helmets in this game^noteOnly having circlets for headwear, though their on-click quotes mention wearing one. This is because their model was actually meant for the scrapped Crusader hero unit, while the Knight's original model wore a winged helmet.
Jousting Lance: Knights wield a lance in their right hand, which they point forward for a charge when they move, but otherwise they don't attack with it in the original game. In Reforged however they actually attack with it alongside their sword.
Knight in Shining Armor: Referred to as the shining Knights of Lordaeron and generally fits the trope's heroic image, riding into battle on a warhorse while wearing heavy plate armor and wielding a knightly sword and lance. The Knight also speaks proudly of honor and serving the king.
Lantern Jaw of Justice: Owing to the game's cartoony art style, the mostly heroic Knight has a large, exaggerated chin, which also carried over to the less heroic Garithos, who in turn made it memetic. In Reforged, the chin is significantly reduced due to the change in art style.
Lightning Bruiser: Knights have more than double the HP of Footmen (researching Animal War Training gives them even more HP), more than double their armor, and more than triple their damage. Compared with other late-game melee units they have the highest speed and armor, though they have the second lowest HP and damage once Animal War Training is researched. Their main perk since the Reforged update is the Sundering Blades passive trait that boosts their damage against medium armor by 15%, giving them a niche for charging down ranged attackers, among other medium troops.
Mounted Combat: The Knight rides an armored warhorse into battle, giving him faster movement than most of the other Human units.
Ornamental Weapon: In the original version of the game, despite carrying a lance in their right hand they never actually attacked with it, only pointing it forward for a charge when moving. Their updated model in Reforged however was changed to actually attack with their lance alongside their sword.
Vanilla Unit: Before getting the Sundering Blades upgrade in Reforged, Knights had no active or passive abilities.

Priest

"I come to cleanse this land."

While the high elves of Quel’Thalas left the Alliance, some of their priests refused the edict to return to their country of origin and continued to aid their human allies in Lordaeron. Their magic can heal the wounded as well as increase their allies' fighting ability.

Anti-Magic: Dispel Magic, which removes all buff and debuff spells in an area, while also dealing inflicting considerable damage to summoned units.
Boring, but Practical: The main reason to use Priests is their simple Heal spell. It only has a one-second cooldown time, costs very little mana, and can be set to autocast, causing the Priest to keep using it on damaged units as long as he has mana.
Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In addition to being a Shout-Out to Toy Story, the Priest's Stop Poking Me! quote references the cursor, represented for the Alliance as a gauntlet, as a "big metal hand in the sky."
The Medic: Priests can heal friendly units with their Heal spell. It does not restore as much HP as other healing spells, but it is cheap and can be set to autocast, so the player does not have to manually order the Priest to use it.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Inner Fire (increases armor and damage) can be used on mechanical units, unlike most other buff spells.
Palette Swap: Priests in The Frozen Throne replace the white in their robes and capes with black, and their blue colors become green, representing that they are now Blood Elves rather than High Elves.
Side Effects Include...: The Priest's "Stop Poking Me" quote:
Priest: Side effects may include: Dry mouth, nausea, water retention, painful rectal itch, hallucinations, psychosis, coma, death, and halitosis^noteBad breath. Magic is not for everyone; consult your doctor before use.
Squishy Wizard: The Priest has low attack and HP, so he has to be kept away from enemies.
Support Party Member: Priests can attack, but their main job is to support frontline units with their spells.
Undying Loyalty: The reason why the Priests help the Alliance despite the High Elves leaving is that some of them are still loyal to the Alliance.
White Mage: A largely defensive spellcaster, Priests can heal and buff allies while removing negative effects. Their only real offensive ability is dispelling enemy summoned units.

Sorceress

"The flows of magic are whimsical today."

Female elven mages who were sent from Dalaran to aid the forces of the Alliance. Rather than directly using their magic, they instead use their spells to hinder the enemy, making them easier for their allies to slay.

Balance Buff: Invisibility is the best version of this ability yet. It now only costs 50 mana, out of a possible maximum of 400. This is a considerable buff from Warcraft II where it cost 200 mana out of a Magi's 255 capacity.
Cleavage Window: They sport a big one that extends up to their neck and shoulders.
Forced Transformation: Their final spell Polymorph transforms their target into a harmless sheep temporarily.
Hot Witch: The Sorceress is a magic user who is a very attractive woman.
Invisibility Cloak: Their tier 2 spell, Invisibility, does exactly what it sounds like and turns a friendly unit invisible for a relatively long duration.
Ms. Fanservice: The Sorceress is a Hot Witch who has nothing covering her upper chest and speaks in a rather seductive tone.
Nerf: The Polymorph spell took a huge hit from the days of Warcraft II. It’s no longer permanent, and the target retains its normal HP, it can be dispelled, and it can't target heroes. It's still one of the most potentially disruptive spells in the game, capable of neutering heavy units and putting enemies on the back foot. Eventually, in 2024, Polymorph was able to target heroes again, though for a much lower duration (3 seconds).
Palette Swap: In Frozen Throne, the Sorceress's white outfit is changed to red, reflecting them going from High Elves to Blood Elves.
Squishy Wizard: Like the Priest, the Sorceress is a fragile unit with a weak attack.
Support Party Member: The Sorceress is not much of a fighter, so her purpose is to use her spells to debuff enemy units.

Mortar Team

"MORTAAAAAAR COMBAT!"

Teams of dwarfs armed with mortars that fire exploding shells with the intent of pounding enemies and fortifications from a distance.

Balance Buff: Their Flare ability was originally one use. Later patches allow them to use it an unlimited number of times, albeit with the ability having a long recharge time.
Continuity Nod: Like the Dwarven Demolition Squads in Warcraft II, the Mortar Teams are a pair of dwarves who handle explosives in a supporting role for the Alliance.
Defog of War: Their Flare ability launches a flare above a target point, temporarily revealing the surrounding area, including invisible enemies.
Glass Cannon: The duo inflicts heavy damage, and since they are just two unarmed dwarfs with a big cannon, they die very easily if they come under fire. That being said, they're often a tad hardier than most siege units as they benefit from armor upgrades and can be healed by Priests and Paladins due to not being Mechanical. And they move much faster than other siege units.
Hey, Catch!: One of their attack quotes:
"Hey, you! Catch!"
Long-Range Fighter: Aside from the long cooldown for their attacks, the Mortar Team has a minimum range that keeps them attacking anything that gets too close.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Being living creatures rather than Siege Engines, Mortar Teams can be targeted by magic that can't hit machines. This can be good (Bloodlust increasing attack speed comes to mind, Heal being cheaper than repairing) and bad (having low HP and being vulnerable to magical nukes like Storm Bolt and Death Coil is not conducive to survival).

Gyrocopter / Flying Machine

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/flyingmachine.gif

"We have liftoff!"

Inspired by the flying machines of the gnomes, dwarven engineers constructed their own small but versatile flying craft capable of acting as fast airborne scouts. While not completely safe to operate, the gyrocopters are armed with cannons and explosives in the event their brave, possibly crazy pilots are in combat.

In Frozen Throne, the unit was renamed Flying Machine.

Anti-Air: While they can be upgraded with bombs to attack ground targets, their main purpose is to attack other air units.
Expy: Of the Gnomish Flying Machine in Warcraft II.
Fragile Speedster: While fast, its attacks are remarkably weak and it needs to operate in large groups to achieve any result (notably, it's the only non-Worker Unit to only cost 1 food). The Gyrocopter is stronger than the later Flying Machine, but it's still not very good at taking damage.
Splash Damage: One of their upgrades lets them deal splash damage to air units.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Gyrocopter to the Gnomish Flying Machine from Warcraft II. In Frozen Throne, the Flying Machine is this to the Gyrocopter, being explained as an upgrade.
True Sight: This unit can see invisible units.
Zerg Rush: Despite the Flying Machine supposedly being an upgrade to the Gyrocopter, Flying Machines are far weaker than Gyrocopters, with less health than even Peasants. However, they also became much cheaper and faster to build, making them much easier to deploy en masse (two Flying Machines have collectively more health than a Gyrocopter and around the same DPS, while being cheaper and costing the same amount of population).

Steam Tank / Siege Engine

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/siegeengine.gif

A recent addition to the alliance designed by the dwarves. The Steam Tanks bring powerful cannons against enemy fortifications and are protected by extremely tough armor.

In Frozen Throne the unit was renamed Siege Engine and gained an upgrade that lets them launch a Barrage of rockets at air targets.

Art Evolution: It was redesigned between the base game and the expansion. Originally, the Steam Tank looked like an old-style front car of a freight train, but the Siege Engine looks more like a bulldozer and has a large gryphon face design.
Anti-Air: The Siege Engine can gain an ability called Barrage that allows it to fire rockets at air units.
Anti-Structure: Siege Engines, as the name suggests, are built for bulldozing through enemy bases, using their heavy armor to shrug off enemy retaliation while knocking down buildings with their powerful attacks.
Close-Range Combatant: Unlike other anti-building units who rely on their range to safely demolish enemy fortifications from afar, the Siege Engine prefers to get close and personal and has the durability to tank enemy retaliation. The Frozen Throne redesign also makes it look more like a battering ram with a gryphon head.
Crippling Overspecialization: The Steam Tank packs a heavy punch against buildings and, unlike other siege units, is extremely durable. Too bad that attacking buildings is all it can do. The Barrage upgrade allows them to attack air units, but Siege Engines remain harmless against ground units.
Gameplay and Story Integration: The Siege Engine takes up 4 slots on a boat or zeppelin, which makes sense since it probably weighs a ton.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike typical Siege Engines, these machines attack at melee range instead of from afar, have Fortified armor instead of the typical Heavy armor, can't harm mobile ground units, and can be fitted with Anti-Air rockets.
Mighty Glacier: Unlike most siege units, they are inversely verly durable and attack nearly at melee range. They have high HP and Fortified armor, which are normally only found on buildings. This means most attacks deal reduced damage to them. The cost of all this resilience is that they are slow.
Necessary Drawback: They are the only buildable unit with the highly durable Fortified armor and an attack that can blast through structures at a respectable rate. However, they can not attack mobile ground units, they are restricted to almost melee range against structures, and their anti-air attack isn't remarkable for their food cost.
Tank Goodness: Gryphon-headed assault tanks that boast structure armor and are designed to blast structures into smithereens themselves. They can't scratch mobile ground units, but can be upgraded to fire rockets at air units.
The Voiceless: Neither unit has any quotes: all that the player hears is the noise of the engine.

Gryphon Rider

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gryphon.gif

"It's hammer time!"

The dwarves of Aerie Peaks once again come to the aid of the Alliance, riding on the backs of their mighty gryphons. Hurling their Stormhammers at targets on the ground and sky, they remain a powerful force in the Alliance.

Anti-Infantry: Storm Hammers gives the Gryphon Rider area of effect damage (where their hammers will strike units behind their original target), and their high damage and magic attack type means they will tear apart heavy armor (usually melee) units.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Storm Hammer allows their attacks to damage enemies behind their target when attacking ground units.
Lightning Bruiser: Gryphon Riders have the highest damage and HP of flying units, even before their HP is increased by Animal War Training (not counting Creeps) next to the Frost Wyrm and Chimaera, with speed equal to the less powerful Wind Rider.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The riders throw their hammers as opposed to striking enemies with them. The hammer returns to their owner once it has hit its target.
Thunder Hammer: The weapon of the rider is their Stormhammer.

Water Elemental

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/waterelement.gif

Archmages are capable of summoning Water Elementals to aid their warriors in battle, just as the Conjurors of the First War did. The mindless husks of water are durable and can inflict considerable damage in turn.

The Bus Came Back: After disappearing in Warcraft II, the Water Elemental returns as a summoned unit for the Archmage.
Crutch Character: Because they're summoned units with decent stats that cost nothing but the Archmage's mana, Water Elementals make excellent tanks in the early game, especially when fighting neutral units so that your actual units take less damage. While they do become quite powerful at higher levels, their status as summoned units mean they get destroyed quickly by dispels, making them less powerful overall once the enemy has teched up.
Jack of All Trades: The Water Elemental is very versatile by early game summon standards with the ability to engage air targets and a good amount of health, making them a very safe option early on.
Making a Splash: They are comprised of water and attack by shooting blasts of water at the enemy.
Mighty Glacier: As the Summon Water Elemental spell is leveled up, the Water Elementals get stronger and more durable. By level 3 they have the highest HP of any non-hero Human unit next to the Knight and Phoenix, while having higher damage than the former. Their subpar speed, however, never gets any better.
Nerf: Even though leveling up the spell to summon them makes them more powerful, Water Elementals never occupy the game-breaking level of strength they had in the original game. On top of this, they have the vulnerability to Anti-Magic spells damaging them.

Spell Breaker

"I smell magic in the air..."

After the loss of their homeland, Blood Elf warriors have trained in the disruption of magical energies in the hope of defending the dying land of Lordaeron.

Added in Frozen Throne.

Anti-Magic: Their entire purpose. They are passively immune to spells, they can counter buffs and debuffs with Spell Steal, they can control summoned units with Control Magic, and their attacks passively burn mana and deal extra damage to units with mana pools.
Double Weapon: They wield a large double-bladed sword that they throw at a target.
Enemy Exchange Program: Control Magic allows the Spell Breaker to take control of enemy summoned units.
Heavily Armored Mook: Spell Breakers are covered in armor and carry large shields, giving them better protection than Footmen (except against melee attacks, due to their armor type) as well as spell immunity.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: They carry large shields to protect themselves, though they don't actively use them. They do still have the animation for it and their scrapped Magic Defend ability is still available in the editor, working just like Defend but giving magic immunity in exchange for speed.
Mage Killer: As indicated by their name, the Spell Breaker is an anti-magic specialist. They are immune to enemy spells, they can turn the enemy's magical buffs and debuffs against them, and their passive ability Feedback causes their attacks to remove mana from a target while damaging them for the same amount. Aside from killing magic-using units, this ability can be deadly against heroes with low mana.
Mana Burn: The Spell Breaker's attacks remove the target's mana and deal bonus damage equal to the burnt mana if applicable.
Mind Control: Their Control Magic spell allows them to take control of summoned units. The cost of the spell is proportional to the target's remaining health.
No-Sell: Spell Breakers are passively immune to negative spells. This gives them an edge over the Knight as a frontline unit, as in addition to not being countered by units like Frost Wyrms, you can cast Blizzard and Flamestrike on top of them without dealing friendly fire damage.
Power Parasite: Their spell Spell Steal allows them to either steal an enemy’s buff and then give them to the Spell Breaker's ally or transfer an ally's debuff to the enemy.
Stone Wall: Spell Breakers are durable units but deal low damage unless they are attacking something with mana to trigger their Feedback ability.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Rather than hitting enemies with their swords, they throw them like glaives.

Dragonhawk Rider

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dragonhawk.gif

"Glory to the Blood Elves!"

Elven warriors ride a fast bird called a Dragonhawk, using their abilities to restrain enemy air units and blind enemy towers with fog so their allies can strike without fear of enemy defenses.

Added in Frozen Throne, though a High Elf version appears in the Scourge campaign in Reign of Chaos.

Anti-Air: Their Aerial Shackles ability prevents an air unit from moving while damaging them for thirty seconds while damaging them unless the Dragonhawk Rider is interrupted.
Anti-Structure: Their Cloud spell stops buildings with ranged attacks from firing.
Concentration-Bound Magic: Both of the Dragonhawk Rider's spells must be channelled and will stop if the caster does anything else or is interrupted.
Inescapable Net: Aerial Shackles is a magical equivalent, snaring the victim in a magical net that deals damage over time. Stunning, silencing, or killing the Dragonhawk Rider will interrupt the ability, though.
Jousting Lance: They wield lances from which they shoot bolts of magic at their enemy.
Support Party Member: The Dragonhawk Rider lacks the raw power of the Gryphon Rider and the cheap cost of the Flying Machine, so it is not as good in frontal assaults. Instead, players are meant to rely on its spells to soften up/neutralize towers and flying units.

Phoenix

A firebird created by the Blood Mage when he casts his Ultimate. Its searing flames burn everything nearby, including itself, and upon death, it leaves an egg that hatches into a new Phoenix.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Anti-Magic: The Phoenix is immune to spells.
Glass Cannon: On paper, the Phoenix’s stats would make it a Lightning Bruiser. Since it loses HP every second, it ends up a Glass Cannon, since this weakness makes it far more vulnerable.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: The Phoenix ignores the usual rules of summoned units, as it is not actually considered one. Rather than having a timed life until it expires like other summoned units, the Phoenix loses HP every second. Whenever it dies, either due to an enemy or because its HP runs out, it turns into a Phoenix Egg. If the egg isn’t destroyed within ten seconds, the Phoenix respawns.
No-Sell: The Phoenix (in both flying and Egg form) is immune to spells.
Playing with Fire: The Phoenix’s flames are so hot that just getting near it burns enemies. It also burns itself.
Required Secondary Powers: Averted; the Phoenix has no protection from its flames, causing it to lose HP every second.
Scissors Cuts Rock: As the Phoenix is not considered a summoned unit, Anti-Magic spells do not counter it like most summoned units. Even if it were, its magic immunity means dispels wouldn't work on it anyway.
Soft Water: Inverted. The Phoenix if it dies over deep water (or cliffs with no pathing, same rules as the Goblin Zeppelin’s cargo units) will cause it to die without going into Egg form.
Wreathed in Flames: The Phoenix burns enemies near it, inflicting a damage over time debuff to them.

Orcish Horde Units

Peon

"Ready to work."

Peons are the allegedly stupid lowly workers of the Horde tasked with menial labor like gathering resources and construction. Nonetheless, their work is essential for the Horde to function.

Borrowing from the Sister Series: By virtue of being the only unit elligible to enter Burrows, they function like Terran Marines garrisoned inside Bunkers.
Garrisonable Structures: Peons are the only units capable of garrisoning Orc Burrows.
Informed Flaw: As usual, the descriptions of the Peons imply they aren't very smart even though they perform complicated construction work.
Javelin Thrower: When garrisoned inside Burrows, Peons hurl spears at enemy units to protect their base. Additional peons increase the attack rate of the Burrows.
Loot-Making Attack: Peons do benefit from the Pillage upgrade, allowing them to generate resources by hitting enemy buildings, though their weakness in combat means this is unlikely to be useful in practice.
Not the Intended Use: It's not unheard of for Orc players to bring Peons into battle alongside their armies, as they can serve as extra targets for the Spirit Walker's Spirit Link and thus distribute more damage away from their actual combat units.
Simpleton Voice: They have low-pitched, dopey-sounding voices to reflect their (supposed) lack of intelligence.
This Is Gonna Suck: When ordered to attack an enemy, their quotes mostly show them as less than confident since they know they are not warriors.
Worker Unit: They are the builder and resource gatherer for the Orcs.

Grunt

"My life for the Horde!"

The rank and file of the Horde's armies. Formerly characterized by their cruelty and thirst for blood, under the leadership of Thrall, they have returned to the savage, yet noble ways of their ancestors.

Grunts are the strongest of the basic units by a wide margin, but also the most expensive.

Barbaric Battleaxe: The Grunt wields an axe, a symbolic weapon of the Horde, compared to the Footman's sword, reflecting the Horde's Noble Savage characterization.
Boring, but Practical: They're little more than basic melee fighters with a beefy health bar, but that's enough to make them perfectly respectable fighting unit throughout the game. Due to their high health and respectable damage, they are much better late game than comparable early game melee units.
Horns of Barbarism: The Grunt wears a horned helmet as a savage contrast to the Footman's barbute-styled helmet.
Loot-Making Attack: Researching the Pillage ability allows Grunts to gain resources by attacking enemy buildings.
Mighty Glacier: They don't have the fastest movement speed or attack rate, but their attacks hit quite hard for a basic unit and they have a ton of health, halfway between basic units and late-game melee tanks. Berserker Strength makes them even more tough and damaging.
Took a Level in Badass: Warcraft III upped the strength of Grunts so they are now the strongest of the basic units as opposed to being the equal of the Footman. They have the most HP by a wide margin and the highest damage, and that is even before Berserker Strength is researched, which gives them almost as much HP as a Knight and increases their damage.
Walking Shirtless Scene: Unlike in the previous two games, Grunts have nothing covering their upper body besides a shoulder pad and the straps holding it on. Yet, they are more resilient.

Troll Headhunter / Berserker

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/headhunter.gif

"Vengeance for Zul'jin!"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/berserker.gif

Troll Berserker after being upgraded

While the Horde's attempts at conquering Lordaeron failed, the oppressed Trolls of the continent have still found common cause with the Horde under Thrall's leadership ^note. Troll Headhunters are raised from birth to hunt and track wild beasts. In war, they will fight as the ranged troops of the Horde with their throwing spears.

Berserkers were added in Frozen Throne as an upgrade to Headhunters that is available when the Great Hall reaches Tier-3 (Fortress). They can enter a berserk frenzy to throw their spears more quickly at the expense of taking more damage.

The Artifact: Headhunters speak with a Cuban accent, a trait belonging to forest trolls, even though they are supposed to be jungle trolls, who speak with a Jamaican accent. Early images of Warcraft III originally showed them as green-skinned forest trolls, while the final game showed them as blue-skinned jungle trolls. As a result, it doesn't make sense for jungle trolls to know or even care about Zul'jin. It also explains why the Battle.net description of the headhunters claims that they were "disenfranchised trolls of Northern Lordaeron," even though they belong to the Darkspear tribe that Thrall befriended on the Darkspear Island, which is far away from Lordaeron.
Attack Speed Buff: Berserk increases damage received by 40% in exchange for a 50% attack speed bonus.
Borrowing from the Sister Series: Berserkers emulate Terran Marines with their Berserk ability, which temporarily boosts attack speed like the Marine's Stimpacks. The difference is that Berserk increases the Berserker's damage taken instead of inflicting direct damage on the user.
Composite Character: Of both their predecessors. They're troll with a berserker upgrade like the Troll Axethrowers, but they instead throw spears, like the Orc Spearmen from the first game.
Double-Edged Buff: The Berserk ability they gain when upgraded to Berserkers increases their attack rate at the cost of increasing the damage they take.
Expy: Of the Spearman from the original game, being a ranged unit of the Horde that throws spears.
Glass Cannon: Headhunters have low health, especially in Reign of Chaos (280, even less than Archers in the same game), but they deal more damage per attack, though at the cost of a slower attack speed. This makes them quite effective at focusing down a target in large numbers. Berserkers gain more health, but their Berserk ability gives them to option to become this by increasing attack speed in return for taking more damage.
Javelin Thrower: They throw javelins at enemies.
Healing Factor: Most units in the game slowly regenerate HP, but Troll units stand out thanks to Troll Regeneration, an upgrade which increases their health regeneration.
Overshadowed by Awesome: Hilariously, Headhunters were outclassed by Shamans in their own role as ranged attackers in Reign of Chaos; Shamans had about as much DPS as Headhunters, more health, and actual spells. Frozen Throne buffed the Headhunter quite a bit, added the Berserker upgrade, and changed Shamans to deal Magical attack damage, giving the Headhunter its role back.
Shed Armor, Gain Speed: The Berserk ability they gain when upgraded to Berserkers increases their attack rate at the cost of increasing the damage they take.

Catapult / Demolisher

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/demolisher.gif

A staple of the Horde's armies, the Catapult hurls burning projectiles over great distances. It is the most powerful siege weapon of the Horde.

In Frozen Throne the unit was renamed Demolisher.

Glass Cannon: It has the highest damage and HP of the long-range Siege Engines, and also benefits from armor upgrades. However, its HP is still low.
Long-Range Fighter: While it has a long-range, its minimum range keeps it from attacking units that get too close.
Kill It with Fire: Frozen Throne changing the unit to the Demolisher also brought an upgrade that gives it the Burning Oil ability. This causes all of its attacks to light the ground on fire and slowly damage whatever was in the area they hit.
Siege Engines: It is a long-range building destroyer that can set targets on fire for extra damage.
Sudden Name Change: Originally the Demolishers were called Catapults until Frozen Throne, then the name was changed to Demolishers and the description treated them like they were always called that.
The Voiceless: The unit has no visible crew, so it has no quotes.

Raider

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wolfrider.gif

"Ready to ride!"

Raiders were honored warriors of the Horde until Warlock Gul'dan arranged for them to be disbanded before the Second War. Under the leadership of Warchief Thrall, a new generation of Raiders has been trained. Riding on top of giant wolves, the Raiders wield massive blades, and can ensnare enemies with thrown nets.

Anti-Air: While they cannot attack air units, researching Ensnare allows them to force air units to the ground and render them immobile, making the target vulnerable to the Orcs’ powerful melee units.
Anti-Escape Mechanism: Ensnare is one of the best tools for pinning down fleeing enemies in the game, immobilizing normal units for well over 10 seconds and bringing air units to the ground; it can even reel airborne targets into melee range if cast from far enough away. Heroes are affected for a much shorter duration, but that's easily circumvented by just having multiple Raiders.
Anti-Structure: Raiders do Siege damage, which makes them better at destroying buildings than units since most buildings have Fortified armor which takes reduced damage from everything except Siege and Chaos damage. Their Medium armor also reduces the damage they take from most defensive structures.
BFS: The Orc on the wolf carries a sword that is as big as he is.
The Bus Came Back: After vanishing in Warcraft II, the Raiders make a return.
Canis Major: Raiders ride on top of giant wolves that are as big as horses.
Divergent Character Evolution: They were heavy melee fighters in the first game, the orc counterpart to the human Knight. While the Knight retains this role in the third game, the Raider's stats make them very ill-suited for frontline combat (the role of heavy melee unit is given to the Tauren instead). They're far from useless, though; their speed and Siege damage makes them excellent for harassing expansions. Ensnare is also easily one of the most useful and versatile abilities in the entire game.
Fragile Speedster: For an Orc unit, at least; while they still have good health compared to other factions' combat units, Raiders are Stronghold-tier units that have less health than basic Grunts, and their armor type makes them less effective against other frontline units. However, they're also fairly fast.
Hit-and-Run Tactics: Groups of Raiders are often used to harass expansions, but due to their lackluster frontline power they run if defenders arrive.
Horns of Barbarism: The Raider wears a horned helmet. By contrast, the Knight, who used to wear a horned helmet in Warcraft 2, doesn't wear a helmet at all.
Inescapable Net: The Raider can use Ensnare to throw a net at an enemy, preventing the target from moving (or repairing, if it’s a worker) and confining it to the ground for melee units to attack. The targeted unit is completely unable to escape or even move until its duration wears off (though heroes shake off the net much more quickly), and because it's not magic, they can't be freed by dispels either.
Loot-Making Attack: They can research the Pillage ability to generate resources while attacking enemy buildings, and their Siege attacks make them more efficient at doing so than the Grunt.
Potty Failure: A Stop Poking Me! quote shows that the wolves might not be house trained, much to the rider's disgust.
"What's that smell? Oh, bad dog!" (wolf whimpers)
Simple, yet Awesome: The Ensnare ability just throws a net at the target, yet it's considered one of the best abilities in the entire game by its sheer number of uses it has: it can bring down air units to ground level, immobilize ground units (which is a great way to prevent weakened heroes from fleeing so you can finish them off), stop workers from repairing of hiding in structures (if they are able to), and even interrupt channeled abilities (including powerful ultimate spells like Starfall or Death and Decay). It also ignores Spell Immunity, cannot be dispelled, and can target mechanical foes.

Kodo Beast

Kodo Beasts are huge creatures native to the plains of the Kalimdor. The Orcish Horde learned to use them as beasts of burden, carrying war drums to act as symbols of the Orcs' strength and valor and aiding the Orcs through their size and power.

Defog of War: Used as a drawback; Kodo Beasts that have Devoured a unit will provide vision for the Devoured unit's controller and their allies until the unit is fully digested or the Kodo Beast is killed. This makes sneak attacks impossible while the Kodo remains with your forces, and can feed enemies information in exchange for removing their powerful unit.
Eating the Enemy: The Kodo Beast's Devour ability lets it swallow any non-Mechanical, non-Hero land unit below level 6, after which the unit slowly takes damage until it dies or the Kodo Beast is killed. This is pretty useful if powerful melee units (Knights, Tauren) approach them.
Mook Commander: The Kodo Beast has a weak attack, so its main purpose is to use its War Drums Aura to buff the damage of friendly units.
Stone Wall: While the Kodo Beast is a slow support unit without a lot of damage output (barring the ability to Devour enemies), it's quite durable, with the most HP of the Orc units next to the Tauren.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The rider of the Kodo Beast throws axes at the enemy.
The Voiceless: While the Kodo Beast has an Orc rider, its voice responses are all grunts and noises from the Kodo Beast itself. The rider only speaks in one of its Stop Poking Me! quotes.

Wyvern / Wind Rider

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wyvernrider.gif

"Ready to soar, master!"

Impressed by the honor of the Orcs, the Wyverns of the Kalimdor willingly allied with the Horde and allowed the Orcs to ride them in the battle against threats to Kalimdor. The Wind Raiders hurl spears from the Wyverns at ground and air targets. Renamed “Wind Rider” in The Frozen Throne.

Glass Cannon: They have the least health of the hard-hitting flying units (less than an Orc Grunt) and since they have Light armor, they take extra damage from attacks that do Piercing damage, and most units with Anti-Air abilities inflict Piercing damage. They can, however, do a ton of damage with their Envenomed Spears (and amusingly, can kill themselves with it if targeting a Defending Footman).
Poisoned Weapons: Researching Envenomed Spears adds poison to their attacks, causing enemies to take Damage Over Time.
Sudden Name Change: They were originally called "Wyvern"(s) in Reign of Chaos. It was likely changed due to the misleading name (making it sound like it was the beast without the rider). Kodo Beasts maintained the same name, though their rider is much less visible (not being seen on the portrait or icon).
Our Wyverns Are Different: The wyverns are flying creatures that share the same ancestry as dragons and gryphons. They join the Horde after Thrall and Cairne saved its herd from harpies. Their appearance, its lion's body, bat wings, and spiny tail, makes it resemble less like a traditional wyvern, but more like a manticore.

Shaman

"Storm, earth, and fire, heed my call!"

When Thrall became the Warchief of the Horde, he turned them away from the use of fel magic and towards the Shamanistic traditions of their ancestors. The Shamans of the Horde draw their power from the natural world and its elements to battle their enemies of the Horde and aid their allies.

Attack Speed Buff: Shamans can use Bloodlust to increase the attack and movement speed of friendly units.
Blessed with Suck: Creative use of Lightning Shield causes it to become this for the enemy. It creates a shield of electricity that damages units near the target. Since it can be cast on enemy units, a popular tactic is to use it on fragile enemy units who are clumped together (and this tactic is often used by the AI).
Make My Monster Grow: Bloodlust increases the size of the target, though this is purely cosmetic and doesn't affect their collision size.
Nerf: The Bloodlust spell is much weaker than in Warcraft II, going from tripling a target’s damage to giving a forty percent increase in the target's attack speed and a twenty-five percent increase in movement speed. The spell is, however, still powerful and can still easily turn the tide if cast on enough units before a fight.
Not the Intended Use: In Reign of Chaos, Shaman did quite a bit more damage (Average 16 and increased each level of research, which was nerfed down to 10-1 and no longer scaled with research, and their attack rate was slowed down) and had the piercing attack type, which is not blocked by Spell Immunity. Since this was before Berserkers, this meant bloodlusted Shaman were actually quite effective as relatively cheap, fast moving, ranged damage dealers that also had powerful spells, especially if they start spamming purge on any hero or unit that tries to run away from them. You could have an extremely powerful army just with your heroes, Shaman, and Witch Doctors (who had similar damage output) to support the Shaman. It is still possible to play them this way in the Reign of Chaos Orc campaign, which uses an older version of many units.
Shock and Awe: Aside from Bloodlust, their attacks and spells create lightning.
Status-Buff Dispel: Their Purge spell removes all beneficial spells from a target, immobilizes them for a few seconds, and has the secondary purpose of damaging summoned units.
Support Party Member: The Shaman’s spells are meant to help units deal more damage, and he won’t be dealing much since he is meant to stay away from combat.
Wolverine Claws: They wield claw-like weapons, though they're used for hurling balls of lightning rather than melee combat.

Troll Witch Doctor

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/witchdoctor.gif

"Someone call for the doctor?"

The dangerous Troll Witch Doctors aligned with the Horde out of necessity, using their magic to manipulate the chemical processes in their allies to enhance their battle prowess.

Witch Doctors are the Horde's other caster unit, who, rather than using spells that target units, set up magical wards that have special effects.

Defog of War: The Witch Doctor's basic spell plants a Sentry Ward to give vision over an area.
Healing Factor: Like the Headhunter, the Witch Doctor’s HP regeneration is increased by researching Troll Regeneration.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike most spellcasters, which tend to directly manipulate units with buffs or debuffs, Witch Doctors' spells instead plant wards that grant an effect around themselves, which are independent of the Witch Doctor. They can be destroyed by attacks or dispels.
The Medic: With his Healing Wards, the Witch Doctor acts as the main source of healing for the Orcs.
Nerf: Healing Wards used to have 200 Health in Reign of Chaos, but it was reduced to 5 so it would die in one hit.
Support Party Member: The Witch Doctor acts as the Orcs’ healer and can set traps to hinder enemy units. Their abilities all plant various types of wards, so it's entirely viable for the Witch Doctor to do his thing and then back off far away from the action as he's not built for a straight fight.
Trap Master: The Witch Doctor’s Stasis Trap is invisible and stuns enemies who get too close to it. Properly setting it up means it can cut off retreating enemies or slow them if they attempt to return to defend their base.
True Sight: The Sentry Ward detects invisible enemies and is also invisible itself.
Witch Doctor: The Witch Doctors are Troll alchemists and spiritual leaders that aid the Horde with their magical inventions.

Tauren

"May my ancestors watch over me."

In exchange for their aid against their mutual enemies the Centaur, the Tauren of Kalimdor have joined the Horde. While normally a peaceful culture, the Tauren are the strongest warriors of the Horde when they march onto the battlefield.

Anti-Infantry: Due to Pulverize and their greater stats, a group of Tauren will always crush another group of frontline melee units if they aren't debuffed.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Pulverize's damage type is Universal, the same as offensive ultimate spells. It is magical, so it ignores armor, but it also ignores spell immunity. It can only be reduced by magic resistance (from Anti-Magic Shell or from items like Runed Bracers).
Awesome, but Impractical: Tauren are bar none the most powerful frontline melee units in the game, with massive health pools and huge damage potential, and with the addition of the Spirit Walker they can be revived on death. However, they require Tier 3 and a specialized structure to train them and they need Pulverize to actually reach their maximum power, making them much less economical than Grunts, and because they're huge melee units, they can be difficult to maneuver. Later patches moved the Spirit Walker (a more practical mid-game unit) from the Spirit Lounge to the Tauren Totem and made the Totem into a Tier 2 structure, making Tauren more economical to use. Tauren themselves became Tier 2 units in 2024.
Carry a Big Stick: Tauren wield totem poles as massive clubs, fitting their size and overwhelming strength.
Critical Hit Class: Rather than dealing extra damage to its target (unless it is upgraded), their Pulverize ability has a chance to deal damage to enemies around the target.
Epic Flail: Before they were given totems as weapons, they wielded a more brutish iron ball with chain and the classic battle.net website still mentions them as wielding flails.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Pulverize gives Tauren a 25 percent chance of dealing area damage to land units. Between this and their high health, they are the most powerful land melee unit.
Horned Humanoid: Being bull men, they sport a nice big pair of horns. A gag response has them threatening to gore the player on them.
Improbable Weapon User: Tauren fight by hitting enemies with totem poles. Reforged makes the poles even bigger.
Mighty Glacier: Tauren aren’t any slower than starting units, but their size does make them less mobile due to pathfinding issues. In exchange, they are the strongest non-hero non-creep land units before the Mountain Giants were added in Frozen Throne ^note, and even then the Tauren win fights against Mountain Giants with equal resources ^note.
Our Minotaurs Are Different: They are a race of Gentle Giants who are even bigger than orcs.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: As the Ogres are no longer in the Horde's main army, Tauren replaces them in their role as the strongest melee warrior in their army.

Spirit Wolf / Dire Wolf / Shadow Wolf

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/direwolf.gif

A spirit wolf created by the Far Seer.

Canis Major: All three wolves are as big as the one ridden by the Far Seer.
Critical Hit Class: The Dire Wolf gains its own version of the Blademaster’s Critical Strike, giving a chance for its attacks to deal more damage.
Fragile Speedster: Wolves at all three levels are fast, but not especially tough or hard-hitting.
Stealthy Mook: The Shadow Wolf is invisible unless it attacks an enemy.

Troll Batrider

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/batrider.gif

"Blue troll here!"

Trolls riding on giant bats. Batriders are fast units with an obsession with fire and causing destruction with their deadly chemical concoctions.Added in Frozen Throne.

Anti-Air: The Batrider's basic attack only hits ground enemies, but his main source of damage is Unstable Concoction, which only affects air units.
Anti-Structure: Researching Liquid Fire gives the Batrider the ability to set buildings on fire, which in addition to dealing damage keeps them from being repaired and reduces their attack rate. They also deal Siege damage, making them slightly more effective against buildings.
Glass Cannon: The Batrider doesn’t have much health, but using his Unstable Concoction allows him to do more burst damage than any other unit in the game.
Healing Factor: As Trolls, they benefit from the Troll Regeneration upgrade to increase their health regeneration.
Mad Bomber: They love setting things on fire and blowing them up in equal measure, and they carry around vials of explosives that are used both for committing arson and for ramming into enemy air units.
Suicide Attack: The Batrider's special ability Unstable Concoction allows it to deal massive damage against a single air unit and splash damage to any air units around the target at the cost of his own life.

Spirit Walker

"Spirits of the earth, guide me."

Tauren born with white fur are believed to be omens of an incoming ill age and are held in reverence by the rest of their kind, becoming priests who search the land for kindred spirits.

Tauren Spirit Walkers are a fairly strong caster unit who allow their allies to survive longer in battle by splitting up the damage their allies take, and can revive their fellow Tauren who fall in battle.

Back from the Dead: Ancestral Spirit allows the Spirit Walker to revive fallen allied Tauren - including other Spirit Walkers.
No-Sell: When using Ethereal Form, the Spirit Walker is immune to everything except spells and Magic Damage, which do extra damage to them in this form. As another cost, they cannot attack in this state. They also have Resistant Skin, which means they gain hero-like resistance to spells, being immune to some like Polymorph and being affected for a much shorter duration.
Not the Intended Use: While Spirit Walkers are designed as support units, they can make a surprisingly good source of ranged damage as their basic attack is quite strong for a spellcaster and they have decent health (they end up serving a similar function to Shaman in Reign of Chaos before their nerf, though not to the same extent). This is also the Horde's only real source of Magical attack damage, since they lack a heavy air unit with that damage type.
Squishy Wizard: Downplayed. The Spirit Walker has no armor, though, being a Tauren, he does have very high HP for a magic unit, actually possessing more than the basic land units of each faction, save the Grunt. Becoming Ethereal also removes the Squishy part unless facing magic-heavy opposition.
Status-Buff Dispel: Disenchant allows them to remove all buffs and debuffs in an area, patching up a hole in the Horde's repertoire (Shamans can also remove buffs and debuffs with Purge, but only from one unit at a time).
Support Party Member: They are an unusual example compared to the other magic units, as Spirit Link helps friendly units survive longer by splitting the damage between them. They can also revive dead Tauren, including other Spiritwalkers, which brings them back with half mana (enough for a couple of Spirit Links and Disenchants, but not enough to cast Ancestral Spirit themselves). They also hit harder and have much more health than most spellcasters, making them serviceable ranged attackers too.
Synchronization: Their Spirit Link provides a beneficial example, connecting four units and dividing the damage they take between them.

Undead Scourge Units

Acolyte

"The damned stand ready."

Acolytes are human worshipers of Ner'zhul, intent on spreading the will of the Lich King. Utterly fantastical, they do not fear death, viewing it and becoming undead as the ultimate rewards for their service.

Boisterous Weakling: Unlike the Peon and Peasant, Acolytes are oddly confident when sent to attack. To their credit, they do have better attack damage than other worker units and like other Undead they get decent regeneration on Blight, but they're still no match for actual military units. Granted, while Peasants and Peons are lowly workers and aware of it, Acolytes belong to a crazy Apocalypse Cult.
Borrowing from the Sister Series: Acolytes are similar to Protoss Probes by virtue of being able to "warp in" structures, after which the building will build itself while the Probe/Acolyte can go do something else.
In the Hood: Acolytes all wear hoods, and most of their faces are covered as well. Amusingly enough, one of their Stop Poking Me! quotes pokes fun at the practicality of wearing a very low hood:
Acolyte: All I see is blackness! Oh, my hood's down.
Non-Action Guy: Unlike the Peon and Peasant, the Acolyte has no way to defend himself aside from his weak basic attack, and unlike the Wisp, Acolytes cannot hide inside Gold Mines or other buildings. Even their transformation into Shades turns them into harmless invisible scouts. Fortunately, they can wall themselves off by summoning strategically placed structures, usually Ziggurats, a good idea for protecting your Haunted Gold Mine operations; they can later unsummon any structures that are no longer useful.
Resource Reimbursement: Acolytes can unsummon structures to recover part of their original cost, and will always do this to Haunted Gold Mines that run out of gold.
Revenant Zombie: Worshipers who embraced Undeath, but retain their mental capabilities they had when living.
Summon Magic: Rather than constructing buildings, Acolytes use magic to summon them. They can also de-summon them to get some resources back.
Worker Unit: They gather gold from Haunted Gold Mines, repair buildings and mechanical units, and summon Undead buildings. Unlike the other Worker Units, the Acolyte cannot gather lumber, must spend resources to haunt a Gold Mine before being able to mine from it (but does not need to deposit gold at a Necropolis), and only needs to start the construction of a building (which will then build itself), freeing up the Acolyte to create more buildings or gather gold.

Ghoul

Once a zombie makes the final transition into undeath, they become Ghouls. They are bloodthirsty creatures who revel in combat and will consume the flesh of those who fall in battle.

Ghouls function as both the lumber gatherers and basic warriors of the Scourge. Of the basic warriors, they are the cheapest.

Extreme Omnivore: Researching Cannibalize allows a Ghoul to eat a corpse to get back health, regardless of whether the corpse was a living or undead unit.
Fragile Speedster: Of the starting combat units, Ghouls have the lowest HP next to the Archer and the lowest damage next to the Footman, but compensate with a higher base attack speed than the others and decent foot speed (especially when accompanied by a Death Knight). Researching Ghoul Frenzy gives Ghouls a boost to their attack rate and speed, making them as fast as a Knight.
Glass Cannon: Their fast attack speed gives them fairly good damage output compared to most basic units, but their health means they don't last very long against things that fight back. Ghoul Frenzy boosts their damage rate and mobility further and the Dreadlord's Vampiric Aura helps them survive but the latter can only do so much for them under heavy fire.
Horror Hunger: Ghouls are driven by a sort of hunger, and they can eat corpses to heal themselves. Their only non Stop Poking Me! where they speak is a simple "Must feed!".
Instant Militia: Ghouls are designed to be both lumber harvesters and combat units, so pulling your lumber Ghouls works decently as a defensive measure against base raids.
Our Ghouls Are Creepier: They are ugly zombies with long claws who can eat almost anything.
Suddenly Speaking: Their gag responses will have them start to say some simple phrases, while all but one their default responses are growls and roars.
Wolverine Claws: Their long claws are good for both cutting down enemies and chopping trees.
Worker Unit: In addition to fighting, Ghouls are also used to gather lumber. Since Ghouls cost more than a Worker Unit and take up more population space, they carry back twice as much lumber as normal, so fewer are needed to do so.
Zerg Rush: Ghouls are the cheapest of the basic land units and train slightly faster than others, so it is easy to mass them in large groups.

Crypt Fiend

"The sleeper awakes..."

After the Scourge destroyed the spider kingdom of Azjol-Nerub, its inhabitants, the Nerubians, were raised as undead servants called Crypt Fiends. These spider creatures attack by summoning swarms of insects to kill their enemies and can use their webbing to pull flying units to the ground.

All Webbed Up: Their Web ability will draw flying units to the ground and can't be dodged. When affected, the air unit will look like it's wrapped up in a giant web ball. Though lacking the flexibility of the Raider's Ensnare, Web can be auto-cast, so it does not require micromanagement, and Crypt Fiends are generally more versatile in an army than Raiders.
Anti-Air: While they cannot attack air units (unlike most other ranged units), Crypt Fiends can force air units to the ground with their Web ability. Their Piercing attack type is also well suited for killing most flying units. Unusually, Crypt Fiends have a bit of anti-synergy with Gargoyles, who deal much higher damage to flying enemies than ground ones.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: Undead Big Creepy-Crawlies in this case, being mummified spiders.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike typical Anti-Air units, Fiends cannot directly attack air. Instead, they rely upon their webbing to ground their targets. This has the added perk of allowing ground-to-ground units to also attack. This can mean a swift death for the target.
Mole Monster: He would count since he can burrow. Though unlike most types of this trope, the Crypt Fiend cannot attack while burrowed, nor does he do a Dig Attack when he comes out of Burrow.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Undead giant spiders with human torsos, giving them a centaur-like appearance.
Non-Human Undead: In life, Crypt Fiends were giant arachnids rather than humans.
Revenant Zombie: Like Undead Humans, Crypt Fiends speak clearly and thoughtfully.

Gargoyle

Gargoyles are evil creatures brought from Northrend by the Lich King. Normally they attack from the skies but can descend to the ground and harden their skin while regenerating their wounds.

Anti-Air: While they can attack ground and air units, they don't deal a lot of damage to ground units and their main use is to kill other air units. Since the Crypt Fiend's Web temporarily turns an air unit into a ground one, Gargoyles and Crypt Fiends are rarely chosen as Anti-Air together.
Borrowing from the Sister Series: Their function as a Fragile Speedster that is much better at Anti-Air than anti-ground makes them akin to the Terran Wraith. The key difference is that they have Stone Form instead of Cloaking Field.
Fragile Speedster: Gargoyles are among the fastest units in the game, letting chase down ground units, but they're also fairly fragile, and deal pitiful damage against ground.
Glass Cannon: Gargoyles are fast and can inflict a ton of damage when attacking other air units, but again have the second lowest health of all air units, behind the Flying Machine.
Heal Thyself: Using their Stone Form causes their HP to rapidly regenerate.
Mundane Utility: Gargoyles can use Stone Form to dispel debuffs from themselves and then quickly switch back to their flying form.
No-Sell: When using their Stone Form, they are immune to spells.
Our Gargoyles Rock: They are flying undead creatures that can turn themselves to stone to heal their wounds.
Stone Wall: Using their Stone Form causes their armor to skyrocket, turns them magic immune and gives them rapid health regeneration. However, in Stone Form they are immobile and cannot attack.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Gargoyles are highly specialized as air based Anti-Air, and while fast and dangerous towards air units, they are commonly used in small numbers, often as scouts or to put some pressure on heavy air units with their speed and damage. Crypt Fiends are more versatile and often see more common use as Anti-Air. However, on maps with very powerful air unit creeps, Gargoyles are extremely powerful. They can easily kill a lot of these creeps compared to Crypt Fiends ^note. In Dragon or Harpy centric maps, Gargoyles can easily snowball a player to victory, but unfortunately, they are the only two creep lines that are predominantly air-based, and these maps aren't very common.

Shade

"The damned return."

An Acolyte can be sacrificed at a Sacrificial Pit to create a Shade. A Shade acts as an invisible scout who can see other invisible units, though he cannot attack.

Borrowing from the Sister Series: As a low-health, low-cost, unarmed invisible scout unit and detector, Shades are a parallel to the Protoss Observer. They also both require dedicated structures to train (Observers require an Observatory in StarCraft).
Defog of War: Shades have even less HP than the Acolytes sacrificed to create them, and they cannot attack. Instead, they are used as scouts since they are permanently invisible and can see invisible units. Voice lines for the Shades attacking exist in the game, implying that originally, they were going to be able to attack but the ability was cut for balance purposes. The lines still play when a Shade is selected along with other units, and the whole group is ordered to attack.
Fragile Speedster: Shades are fast to help with spying on the enemy, but if spotted, they die to a stiff breeze.
Invisibility: Shades are permanently invisible.
Not the Intended Use: Shades originally had a collision box, even if they were invisible, so sometimes they saw use to block off narrow platforms or they could be used to surround an enemy hero and trap them. They were eventually patched to not have any collision while invisible. The campaigns still have Shades with collision, so it can still be used as an A.I. Breaker.
True Sight: Shades can see invisible units.

Necromancer

"The shadows beckon."

Formerly aspiring mages of Dalaran, the Necromancers were tempted by the promise of power and knowledge by Ner'zhul. In service to the Scourge, they use their magic to create and command various forms of Undead and hinder their enemies.

Animate Dead: Their Raise Dead spell allows them to create two skeletons from a corpse.
Double-Edged Buff: The Necromancer's Unholy Frenzy almost doubles the attack rate of the target, at the cost of draining their HP, and is usually used on Abominations, which can shrug off the damage but get a lot of mileage from the attack rate boost. Thankfully both Undead Auras (Vampiric and Unholy) are built around regaining health, Obsidian Statues can help heal back lost health, and the Banshee's Anti-Magic Shell blocks the health loss too.
Evil Counterpart:
- Like the Necrolytes before them, they are evil versions of Priests (whose predecessors are Clerics). Instead of Unholy Armor they have Unholy Frenzy (+75% attack haste) and in a twist, have a brand new super-debuff ability called Cripple that incapacitates similar to the Sorceress Polymorph ability. However, their main members are Human Magi who gave into the temptation to study Necromancy and joined the Lich King to indulge themselves.
- They are also evil counterparts to Human Magi as they were once Human Magi themselves and Ner'zhul drew them to his side with his promises of power and knowledge.
Evil Sorcerer: They are human mages who chose to fight for the Lich King in exchange for power.
Necromancer: It is in their name and creating armies of skeletons is their main purpose.
Revenant Zombie: They're former Human Magi who embraced Undeath to study Necromancy under Ner'zhul.
Squishy Wizard: Necromancers are poor fighters and need friendly units to keep the enemy away from them.
Support Party Member: Necromancers are frail, so they are meant to stay behind the sturdier units while creating an army of Skeletons, using Unholy Frenzy on a powerful friendly unit and using their Cripple spell to weaken a strong enemy.
You Have Researched Breathing: A patch in Reforged changed Cripple into their basic spell and Raise Dead to their tier 2 ability, meaning Necromancers need additional research to actually perform necromancy. This was eventually reverted back so that Necromancers could Raise Dead from the start once again.
We Can Rule Together: After Ner'Zhul's Dark Horde losing the Second War to the Human Alliance as well as their Magi, Ner'Zhul began subverting Lordaeron and Dalaran by using his newly granted Lich King powers to tempt Human Magi into his Scourge to learn new powers and knowledge under his command.

Skeleton Warrior and Skeletal Mage

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/skeleton.gif

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/skeletalmage.gif

Skeleton units summoned by a Necromancer. They are melee and Ranged skeletons respectively.Skeleton Mages were added in Frozen Throne.

Achilles' Heel: Before Frozen Throne introduced the Skeleton Mage, the masses of Skeletons had no way of dealing with air units. Even with that they still have a weakness to Anti-Magic spells since the low health of the Skeletons means such spells will mow them down faster than the Necromancers can create new ones.
Anti-Air: Skeletal Mages can attack air units and from afar, to offset their lower damage compared to the Skeleton Warrior's.
Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Each player is limited to 25 Necromancer skeletons at a time (though there's no cap on the number of skeletons that can be summoned by each individual Necromancer); summoning more than that will cause existing ones to die off.
Cannon Fodder: Skeletons are fragile and do not do much damage. Their strength is that it only takes a spell from the Necromancer that can be set to autocast to create them, making them excellent for throwing at enemies in hordes or feeding to a Death Knight or Lich.
Clown-Car Grave: The Necromancer's Raise Dead somehow summons two skeletons from a single corpse.
Dem Bones: They are Skeletons animated by Necromancers.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Skeletal Mages do not cast spells and do not have Magic damage despite visibly blasting enemies with green fireballs.
Shields Are Useless: Skeleton Warriors carry shields, which serve no purpose.
Zerg Rush: Raise Dead can create two skeletons from any corpse. This allows Necromancers to easily amass an army, especially if they have Meat Wagons to supply them.

Banshee

"Let my cries chill the living..."

Some Night Elf women murdered by the Burning Legion remained in the world for thousands of years as vengeful spirits. When the Lich King became aware of these spirits, he convinced them to serve him in exchange for the chance to exact their vengeance on the living. They are granted terrible voices that they can use as weapons, striking enemies with sonic force and wielding magic to weaken them. If need be, they can drive out the spirit of a living being and take the body for their own.

Anti-Magic: Their Anti-Magic Shell stops a set amount of magic damage. This makes it quite appealing on heroes who are prone to being targeted by nukes. It is also used on Frost Wyrms to counter Unstable Concoction and Aerial Shackles. Originally, it granted its target Spell Immunity, except it could be dispelled.
Awesome, but Impractical: While Possession can be utterly devastating if it manages to steal the enemy's heavy-hitters, it's a pretty big "if", since the Banshee and her target are both marked while casting the ability, and it has to be channeled for 4 seconds to complete. During those four seconds, the already squishy Banshee is completely defenseless and takes increased damage, meaning she dies if the enemy so much as sneezes in her general direction. It also cannot target air units, and Banshees do not spawn with enough mana to use Possession immediately after being trained.
Enemy Exchange Program: Using Possession allows the player who is controlling the Banshee to take control of an enemy ground, non-hero unit under level 6 at the cost of losing the Banshee.
Grand Theft Me: The Banshee's Possession spell drives out the soul of the target unit, letting her take control of it and by extension, the Banshee's controller.
Instant Expert: Banshees that complete Possession will gain the (non-combat racial) upgrades they had. For example, if they possess a Footman with Defend, they will have Defend. This is a potentially nice way to get upgrades without paying for them if facing an enemy who is also playing Undead.
Our Banshees Are Louder: They are ghosts of elves with lethal screams and the ability to wield magic.
Super-Scream: They attack using screams.
Support Party Member: Banshees have relatively weak attacks and are largely a supportive unit that specializes in shutting down the enemy's damage output, whether by Cursing them to miss attacks, protecting key units from magic damage, or simply removing powerful enemy units from the equation entirely and giving them to you.

Meat Wagon

Unusual contraptions resembling catapults, the Meat Wagons are used to collect and store corpses from the battlefield so they can later be raised as undead warriors. In combat, the Meat Wagons fling diseased corpses at enemies.

Glass Cannon: Meat Wagons have the highest damage of the siege units next to the Demolisher but have low health and die easily if they come under fire.
Grievous Harm with a Body: These catapults fling corpses at the enemy.
Long-Range Fighter: Like the other long-range siege units, the Meat Wagon cannot attack targets that are too close.
Plaguemaster: Along with Abomination and a Death Knight's animated dead, they are a source for spreading the Disease Cloud debuff.
Siege Engines: An odd building destroyer that flings dead bodies at the enemy. It can be upgraded to release a cloud of germs wherever its projectiles land.
Worker Unit: In the sense that they gather and preserve corpses for later use. They also have the upgrade Exhume Corpses, which allows them to generate Corpses in their cargo bay (Ghouls or Crypt Fiends, depending on the version).

Abomination

"Us hear and obey."

By sewing together the various body parts from different corpses, the Scourge creates massive warriors called Abominations. These brutes delight in hacking apart enemies with their huge meat cleavers and giant hooks. Being made of several bodies sewn together, the Abominations are dull-witted creatures who think about little besides murder.

Body Horror: It is a huge zombie made from multiple corpses sown together very crudely as it has a patch of flesh with no skin covering it.
Degraded Boss: Unusually for a non-hero unit, the first Abomination that appears in the third mission of the Human campaign is treated as a boss, although it is not difficult to beat. In the fourth mission, they're present in limited numbers, and starting from the fifth mission, they can be trained normally by the enemies.
Dumb Muscle: Abominations are so dim they can barely use words.
Elite Zombie: Of the brute variety, acting as the strongest of the Undead's land units.
Extreme Omnivore: Like Ghouls, Abominations benefit from Cannibalize, allowing them to regain HP from eating corpses.
Flesh Golem: It is a monstrous fusion of corpses stitched together.
Hulk Speak: They have very simplistic speech patterns to show their Dumb Muscle nature.
I Am Legion: In their quotes, the Abominations always refer to themselves as "we" or "us", likely stemming from them being made from multiple bodies sewn together.
Informed Flaw: Abominations are described as slow in the manual, but in-game they are not any slower than the average unit.
Mighty Glacier: Like the Tauren, Abominations aren't any slower than the average unit, but their bulk means they have path-finding issues. In exchange for the lack of mobility, they hit hard (though their attack speed is somewhat slow) and have high HP. Their specialty is being yet another spreader of Disease Cloud like the Meat Wagon and Death Knight's reanimated units.
Plaguemaster: Their Disease Cloud upgrade causes them to inflict a Plague debuff onto nearby living enemy units that drains health over time.

Frost Wyrm

In the past, Dragons in their twilight years would fly to Northrend to die, leaving massive graveyards full of the bones and skulls of long-dead Dragons. When Ner'zhul took full control of Northrend he raised the skeletons as undead servants called Frost Wyrms who only think of serving the Lich King. Infused with cold power, they breathe blasts of frost.

Anti-Infantry: The Frost Wyrm's high damage, magical attack type, and splashing (on land only) slowing attack makes it extremely powerful against heavily armored melee units. They can literally kill groups of Footmen in 2-3 hits.
Anti-Regeneration: Buildings affected by the Frost Wyrm's Freezing Breath cannot be repaired.
Anti-Structure: The Freezing Breath upgrade causes the Frost Wyrm's attack to fully immobilize buildings hit, halting all production, research, attacks and repairs. Due to having magic damage however, the Frost Wyrm's actual damage output against buildings leaves much to be desired.
Awesome, but Impractical: Frost Wyrms are the Scourge's most powerful unit in terms of raw stats. They also cost an arm and a leg, only reviving a high-level hero or hiring a Dragon costs more than a Frost Wyrm, and only a Dragon takes up more population space, so they are a huge investment that is difficult to create in significant numbers. On top of their cost and long build time, they require their own unique structure to build, so if an enemy scouts an Undead base and see a Boneyard(s), they can easily see the Frost Wyrms coming. Despite their high HP, they are still very vulnerable to Anti-Air attacks due to their poor armor and slow speed. Due to their magic attack type, they also cannot damage spell immune units. As a result, they do not see much use outside of team games where it is easier to amass the resources needed to produce them and your allies can cover your early game and tailor their strategy to provide your Frost Wyrms with the necessary support.
Boss in Mook Clothing: Due to their high cost and relative Glass Cannon status, Frost Wyrms are often given as much care as a hero. They are regularly stacked with a huge amount of buffs, sometimes more than the Undead heroes. The Banshee's Anti Magic Shell helps them against certain nuke spells (Unstable Concoction and Aerial Shackles especially), the Necromancer's Unholy Frenzy greatly increases their damage, and they are good targets for the Lich's Frost Armor spell, especially if being focused by melee air units. Death Knights are just as likely to Death Coil a Frost Wyrm as a fellow hero due to their heavy resource cost, and the time it takes to replace one being comparable to reviving a hero.
Breath Weapon: Being skeletons doesn't stop the Frost Wyrms from blasting enemies with their icy breath.
Call-Back: To the Dark Horde's Dragons and their Dragon Roosts. After Ner'zhul founded The Scourge, he replaced the former with Frost Wyrms and reanimated them using Boneyards in lieu of Roosts.
Draco Lich: Reanimated skeletons of dragons.
Evil Counterpart: To the live Dragonflights, particularly the blue dragons. Like Lich heroes, they wield deathly-cold blasts, and can even temporarily freeze structures solid with an upgrade.
Giant Flyer: The largest flying units players normally have access to outside of the occasional (living) dragon.
Glass Cannon: For their cost, Frost Wyrms are this. They deal massive damage, but despite having some decent health, they have poor armor value. They also still have the Light armor class that almost all other flying units have, which does not resist any damage types and takes 200% damage from the abundant piercing type and 125% from magic. On normal flying units that are much cheaper this is a fair balance measure for the superiority of flying movement, and how much more easily they can be replaced, but with the slow Frost Wyrm and its hefty resource and time cost, this armor type is a very risky liability. This was even more pronounced in Reign of Chaos where they only had 1100 health and took longer to build.
Harmless Freezing: Buildings affected by Freezing Breath are trapped in a large block of ice and can't function or be repaired. However, they don't take any damage from it and will instantly defrost in a couple seconds if left alone.
Herd-Hitting Attack: When attacking land units, their attack has a small AOE.
An Ice Person: The name should be a clue. They attack using their icy breath, which can slow enemies hit, and with an upgrade can freeze buildings solid.
Mighty Glacier: They have the highest HP of any non-hero or non-Creep next to the Mountain Giant, and the greatest damage per attack of any unit in the game. Unlike most flying units, however, they are also slow.
Status Infliction Attack: Their attacks will slow any enemy units hit, reducing their movement and attack speed. With the Freezing Breath upgrade, they can also inflict a full freeze on buildings.
Support Party Member: If you keep even a single Frost Wyrm with your army, they can simply support your army by slowing enemies (preferably an enemy hero) or freezing a key structure like an Altar or a defensive structure. It's not as flashy as massing Frost Wyrms but less risky financially and might even trick an opponent into overcompensating with Anti-Air.

Infernal

Near mindless amalgamations of fel energy created by the Burning Legion and summoned by a powerful Dreadlord with his ultimate.

Anti-Infantry: Due to its massive stats and Permanent Immolation, a single infernal can fight and kill a large number of weak land units.
Anti-Magic: The Infernal is immune to spells.
Anti-Structure: Their Chaos damage causes them to deal full damage to Fortified structures. Additionally, if facing Orcs, Infernals are immune to Spiked Barricades (due to their spell immunity).
Crutch Character: Unusually, the Infernal can fall into this because Dreadlords often play solo to try to hit a level 6 power spike as soon as possible. The Infernal's Elite Mook status gradually fades if the game drags on, as it cannot benefit from upgrades, and two or three high-level enemy heroes can have greater impact than the Infernal and the Dreadlord.
Dynamic Entry: When summoned by abilities such as the Dreadlord's ultimate, the Infernal falls to earth as a Flaming Meteor that damages and stuns nearby enemies on impact.
Elite Mook: Infernals are stronger than all other land units that players can build, with the possible exception of the Mountain Giant (which can tank more damage, but deals less).
Infinity +1 Element: Infernals inflict Chaos damage, making it quite effective against buildings and heroes.
Lightning Bruiser: Infernals have the highest HP of any non-hero or Creep unit next to the Mountain Giant, hit almost as hard as a fully upgraded Mountain Giant per attack, and their Permanent Immolation ability damages any enemy touching it. Unlike most late-game melee units, they have a short cooldown on their attacks and are fast.
Mundane Utility: Infernals can attack trees and will knock them down with a single punch (rarely two, if it gets a low damage roll). This makes the giant hellfire golem excellent at clearing patches of trees to open up new areas or attack paths.
My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Infernals are sometimes encountered as Creeps or built by the enemy during the campaign. In both cases, they are not considered summoned units and have no timed life.
Scissors Cuts Rock: Infernals are immune to spells, so the various Anti-Magic spells that inflict heavy damage to summoned units do not work on them.
Wreathed in Flames: They're shrouded in fel fire, and continuously burn enemies around them.

Obsidian Statue

Obsidian Statues are magic statues used at the forefront of Undead armies thanks to their ability to restore health and mana to friendly units.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Living Statue: Floating sphinx-like statues that can move around, although their limbs don't.
Magikarp Power: Their attack is negligible, and they aren't intended to do anything but restore friendly units, but they can turn into the very powerful Destroyers.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: No pun intended, they're essentially Mechanical Priests who provide healing without the need for blighted ground and have a mode that restores mana like a makeshift Brilliance Aura. Similar to Priests, they can dispel magic but only when they irreversibly transform into Destroyers.
The Medic: Their Essence of Blight spell restores HP to nearby units.
Stone Wall: Originally, they had 800 health (still visible if you play the Scourge campaign, which uses an older version of each unit). This was quite a lot for a unit that costs 3 food. It was nerfed down to 700, then 550, then later 500, averting the trope and turning them into Squishy Wizards.
Support Party Member: Filling a role the Undead were missing, the Obsidian Statue can heal units without them returning to blighted ground and restore mana to magic units and heroes.
Weak, but Skilled: Keep them behind your army formation as they only have an average amount of health yet are large, tempting targets. They have a generous amount of armor points, helping soften the blows, but their attack is like a gentle breeze. However, they are both healers and mana batteries, and can permanently transform into Destroyers which is a very good skill for making them offensively strong, especially when they can devour the opponent's magic.

Destroyer

Terrible creatures are held within Obsidian Statues. Once these Destroyers are released, they cannot be bound again. The beasts have an insatiable hunger for magic that they aim to sate by consuming any magic they come across on the battlefield, while using the magic they consume to rain destruction on the enemies of the Scourge.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Anti-Magic: While a Destroyer can do fairly high damage with its Orb of Annihilation spell, since it doesn't regenerate mana, it has to gain it from allies and enemies with its Absorb Mana and Devour Magic abilities, the latter of which also removes buffs and debuffs, and damages summoned units. This allows it to fill a hole in the Undead’s roster as the Necromancer and the Banshee had no spells that could do this, unlike the magic units of other factions.
Discard and Draw: Transforming an Obsidian Statue into a Destroyer completely and irreversibly changes its role.
Jack of All Trades: Destroyers have a reputation for being almost everything a player would want in a single unit. It is a fast-moving spell immune air unit with an AOE dispel (which is unique, as all other units with dispel fall under Squishy Wizard). It is durable and gains some respectable damage with Orb of Annihilation. Despite this, Destroyers are not Master of All due to their usually lackluster damage and are more of a very durable support unit for real damage dealers like Frost Wyrms or Abominations (which can benefit from Unholy Frenzy while Destroyers cannot).
Mana Drain: Absorb Mana causes a Destroyer to steal all mana from a friendly unit. If the targeted unit has more mana than the Destroyer can hold (usually from casting it on a high-level hero or while it still has mana), it will only steal enough to max out its mana pool.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike most units that start with their mana partially full and slowly regenerate it, the Destroyer starts with 0 mana and has negative mana regeneration, meaning that any mana it receives will drain over time. Aside from Orb of Annihilation, its spells give its mana back instead of costing it. They are also unaffected by Fountains of Mana.
No-Sell: The Destroyer is immune to hostile spells.
One-Winged Angel: The creature sealed inside an Obsidian Statue breaks free to give a player a Destroyer. Once this happens, the Destroyer cannot change back.
Stone Wall: A Destroyer has high HP and high armor for a flying unit. However, its damage is relatively low for its cost unless it uses Orb of Annihilation, which turns it into a Lightning Bruiser thanks to its speed.

Carrion Beetle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scarab.gif

Beetles created by a Crypt Lord.

Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Because Carrion Beetles are permanent until killed, the Crypt Lord is limited to having a maximum of 6 in play at a time as a balance measure.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: They are not as big as the Crypt Lord that creates them, but these beetles are still big and resemble stag beetles.
Glass Cannon: While the Level 1 version is basic Cannon Fodder, the Level 2 and 3 beetles have relatively high attack damage but still have low health.
Mundane Utility: Because they don't have a timed life, they are more likely to be around to provide added utility for a Lich's Dark Ritual (restores mana), or the Death Knight's Death Pact (restores health). At Level 2 and up, they surpass Skeletons in return on investment, with the trade-off being that the Crypt Lord needs to spend a small sum of mana (50) to raise each Beetle; this can give the Crypt Lord a niche as a mana battery for the Lich hero. Their lack of resource cost and ability to burrow means you can also use them as stationary observers to spy on key areas, and relocate them to new areas as needed.

Night Elf Sentinels Units

Wisp

Wisps are ancient nature spirits that inhabit Kalimdor's forests, said to be disembodied spirits of Night Elves. Working together with the Night Elves, the Wisps animate various trees and expand them into structures, or strengthen sentient trees known as Ancients.

Action Bomb: While they can't fight back against enemies, they can Detonate themselves to dispel magical effects, harm summoned units, and drain mana from enemies.
Better to Die than Be Killed: Due to Wisps having no ability to fight back, the Wisp's best bet when under fire is to Detonate, which denies enemies experience and damages their mana. This is particularly useful against heroes that specialize in harassing workers like Blademaster or Blood Mage.
Borrowing from the Sister Series: Like Zerg Drones, Wisps transform themselves into Ancients. It is thus prudent to plan ahead, since you'll have to spend a Wisp per Ancient in addition to its costs. The difference is that Wisps can build non-Ancient buildings (Moon Wells, Altar of Elders, Hunter's Hall and Chimaera Roost) like normal, whereas Zerg Drones have no such exceptions.
The Speechless: Instead of speaking, Wisps can only make ethereal beep sounds. Building announcements are instead made by a Huntress.
Worker Unit: Wisps build Night Elf structures, gather gold from Entangled Gold Mines and harvest lumber from trees without cutting the tree down. They do not need to return to drop sites but gather lumber more slowly to compensate.

Archer

"I stand ready."

The rank and file of the Sentinel army are the Archers. These women are experts with their bows and firing from the concealment of the forests of Kalimdor. At night, they can employ a technique called Shadowmelding where they become invisible when holding still.

Amazon Brigade: All Archers are women.
Anti-Air: Upgraded Archers are some of the most cost-effective ground-based anti-air units. Their high sustained piercing damage allows them to tear down air units.
Armored But Frail: They have the Elune's Grace passive ability, which reduces incoming Piercing and magical damage to let them better trade hits against other ranged attackers and offset their pitiful health.
Glass Cannon: The only basic combat unit to be ranged and they deal much higher damage than their counterparts in other factions. As a drawback, they also have the lowest health (only slightly more than most workers), and their armor type makes them very vulnerable to melee damage.
Invisibility with Drawbacks: Using Shadowmeld lets Archers become invisible, but it only works at night and while not doing anything.
Ms. Fanservice: The Archers wear very revealing clothes that expose their cleavage and midriff. This is more apparent in their more detailed models in Reforged.
Zerg Rush: Archers are the cheapest of the basic warrior units next to the Ghoul, so it's easy to amass them in large numbers.

Huntress

"Goddess, light my path."

Huntresses are the elite of the Sentinels, riding on the backs of giant cats called Nightsabers and hurling glaives at their enemies. Their mounts give them greater speed than their companions on foot, and they can Shadowmeld at night.

Amazon Brigade: All Huntresses are women.
Armored But Frail: An inversion, as they've got a respectable health pool by early game standards and can Shadow Meld at night to break focus fire and potentially save themselves from dying, but their armor type means that they resist no damage types and are dangerously weak to ranged units with Piercing and Siege weapons. They got two native armor points to soften the blows but as armies start getting larger and more advanced, their value starts to wane.
Borrowing from the Sister Series: Huntresses are like more versatile Firebats due to them being short-ranged durable warriors who have an edge over early-game melee troops thanks to their multi-target projectiles. As with Firebats, they fare poorly against ranged troops and wane in value during the late game.
Crutch Character: They are effective in rushes if the opponent is not expecting them and only has basic melee troops, but their value goes down if the opponent has anticipated the rush and unlocked ranged troops to snipe them down. As the match progresses, they ultimately get replaced by Druids of the Claw in Bear Form. They do however retain debatable utility for their Sentinel Owl ability to create a Defog of War over trees near key points of the map, until the opponent starts felling the trees or spamming dispels to counter this.
Defog of War: Their Sentinel ability deploys a magical owl to a tree that gives vision over the surrounding area.
Fragile Speedster: They are a fast movie unit with good attack, but their armor type is unarmored, making them vulnerable from other range attacks.
Horse of a Different Color: The Huntress rides a giant cat like a horse.
Invisibility with Drawbacks: Like the Archers, they can use Shadowmeld to become invisible at night while holding still.
It Only Works Once: The Sentinel ability can only be used once by each Huntress.
Lightning Bruiser: Huntresses are faster than the land units of other factions. They have fairly high HP and their attacks can damage multiple units. However, their attacks have a shorter range than Archers, and their higher health is offset by their weak armor type.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike the other early game units with the Normal attack type (Ghouls, Grunts, Footmen), the Huntress does not have the Heavy armor type, and is actually just as weak to the type of enemies she’s countering as they are to her. She also is not a melee fighter, but short ranged, which benefits well with the Priestess of the Moon’s Trueshot Aura.
Mutual Disadvantage: Due to her unique combination of Normal damage and Unarmored armor type, Huntresses both deal and take increased damage against most other ranged units (which tend toward Piercing attacks, which deal bonus damage to Unarmored units, and Medium armor, which takes increased damage from Normal attacks).
No-Sell: As a balance factor, their ranged attack is unaffected by the Footmens' Defend, to provide an early-game counter to this ability that is otherwise absent^note.
Panthera Awesome: Huntresses ride on giant panthers called Nightsabers.
Pinball Projectile: The Huntress's glaive attack bounces to an additional unit after hitting its main target, which means she outputs a lot of overall damage if there are enemies to bounce to. The Moon Glaives upgrade increases the number of bounces.
True Sight: The owl created by their Sentinel ability can see invisible units.

Ballista / Glaive Thrower

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/glaivethrower.gif

The long-range siege weapon of the Sentinels, the Ballista is constructed from sturdy ashenwood trees and flings bolts of iron with deadly precision.

Frozen Throne changed the unit to the Glaive Thrower, retaining the same role but swapping the bolts with massive three-pronged glaives.

Boring, but Practical: They're not the flashiest siege unit between the Mortar Teams, Meat Wagons, and Demolishers, but you can unlock them at Tier 1 and they only lack the ability to fell trees right out of the gate, until you research Vorpal Blades at Tier 2. This gives the Night Elves the option to surprise an opponent with an early-game siege on their base or more easily fight against defensive structures being using offensively.
Discard and Draw: A patch for Frozen Throne in 2019 changed the Vorpal Blade ability for the Glaive Thrower so that rather than hitting units in a line, it increases the speed of the Glaive Thrower's projectile.
Glass Cannon: While it's not as damaging as the artillery units of the other races, the Glaive Thrower still deals decent damage for a Tier 1 unit (on a good damage roll, at least) from long range, but is also extremely fragile.
Power Up Letdown: For a while, Vorpal Glaives was considered a fairly questionable upgrade to take; while it did allow the Glaive Thrower's projectiles to hit multiple enemies in a line, it came at the expense of removing the attack's splash damage and overall making its damage worse since the circular splash was easier to get value from, which is cited as why the upgrade was reworked.
Siege Engines: The Night Elves' long-range Anti-Structure unit. Compared with such units of other factions, its abilities help with killing units.
The Voiceless: Being a war machine with no visible crew, it never speaks.

Dryad

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/driad.gif

"Ah, the great outdoors!"

Dryads are the daughters of the Night Elf demigod, Cenarius, who resemble Night Elf women from the waist up and fauns from the waist down. While normally playful and abhorrent of violence, they will defend Kalimdor with their lives if the need arises.

Anti-Magic: The Dryad is the Night Elves' Anti-Magic specialist. They are immune to spells and their Abolish Magic spell can be set to autocast to dispel buffs and debuffs, though it has to be manually targeted to be used on summoned units. It can also target trees to dispel Sentinel owls.
Crippling Overspecialization: They are extremely good Anti-Magic units and offer an effective slow and great movespeed for killing heroes, but their health, damage, and armor are very low for their cost, they have a poor armor type, and Slow Poison does much less total damage than Envenomed Spears ^note.
Fragile Speedster: Dryads are fast but fragile, and their Unarmored armor type gives them no defensive advantages. Their attacks don't do high damage, though their Slow Poison means they can do heavy Damage Over Time, especially since their attacks slow their target.
No-Sell: Dryads are immune to harmful spells.
One-Gender Race: Dryads are an all-female race.
Poisoned Weapons: Their Slow Poison gives their attacks a passive bonus that deals damage over time while slowing the target.
Our Centaurs Are Different: They are all women and are half deer as opposed to half horse.

Druid of the Claw

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/druidclaw_6.gif

"The sleeper has awakened."

Druids of the Claw are druids who adopted the totem of the Bear and use its powers to defend their home. Their spells enhance the fighting prowess of their allies, but they can also assume the form of mighty bears.

Animal Motifs: Bears. Aside from their design, their Stop Poking Me! quotes result in bear-related pop culture references.
Bears Are Bad News: Druids of the Claw can turn into bears, trading in their magic for fighting prowess.
Dual Mode Unit: In their Night Elf form they have spells that help friendly units in combat. In their bear form, they cannot use spells ^note and their mana regeneration is slower, with the Druid becoming a powerful melee unit instead.
The Medic: In their Night Elf form they can cast Rejuvenation, which slowly restores a large amount of HP over time.
Wolverine Claws: In their bear form, they gain a set of large claws they use to attack enemies, being bears and all.

Hippogryph

Ancient magical beasts who resemble a cross between ravens and stags. They patrol Kalimdor's skies and attack any enemy they come across. In honor of the demigod Cenarius, the Hippogryphs give their allegiance to their Night Elves.

Anti-Air: Hippogryphs can only attack other air units. Thanks to their speed and great damage along with a decent health total, they are very good at it.
Crippling Overspecialization: Hippogryphs excel at killing air units but are harmless against anything on the ground. Fortunately, an Archer can mount them if there is nothing in the air to attack.
Glass Cannon: The Hippogryphs are fast, do heavy damage, and have no natural armor.

Hippogryph Rider

During a battle, Night Elf Archers can mount Hippogryphs and fire their bows from their backs, aided by the speed and mobility of their flying allies.

Discard and Draw: Having an Archer mount the Hippogryph means the Hippogryph's powerful Anti-Air attack is traded in for the Archer's bow, which can attack ground and air units. The mounted Archer also has far more HP than the Hippogryph alone, though since the Hippogryph is carrying an Archer it is slower, albeit still very fast.
Lightning Bruiser: Combining the Hippogryph's fast speed and attack rate with the Archer's long-range damage output and merging their health pools makes the Hippogryph Rider a fast and highly damaging unit, though less than a Gryphon or Wind Rider.
Mounted Combat: Formed by having an Archer mount a Hippogryph and fire arrows from its back. In Frozen Throne, the Archer can dismount, allowing mount and rider to fight separately.

Druid of the Talon

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/druidtalon.gif

"From the great winds, I come."

Druids of the Talon are druids who adopted the Crow totem. Within Night Elf society they act as spies. In battle, they can transform into Storm Crows to act as flying scouts. In their Night Elf forms, they can channel the powers of the wind.

Anti-Air: In their Storm Crow form, they can only attack air units. They aren't going to win any fights on their own, but researching Mark of the Talon allows them to use Faerie Fire to lower the target's armor.
Blow You Away: Their Cyclone spell, which temporarily removes a unit from combat.
Damage-Increasing Debuff: Faerie Fire, their basic spell, inflicts a debuff that reduces the target's armor and grants vision over it.
Dual Mode Unit: In Night Elf form, they possess disruptive spells and serve as an offensive spellcaster. In Storm Crow form, they gain the ability to fly and become a powerful air-to-air specialist.
Glass Cannon: Their Storm Crow form is faster, has more HP, and deals much greater damage than their Night Elf form. Even with the added HP, however, they still have low health.
Horned Humanoid: The Druid of the Talon's official portrait on the battle.net site (shown on the right here) depicts him with antlers like Malfurion despite not having them in the actual game. This is because the model was originally meant for the scrapped Arch Druid hero, which was then reused for the Druid of the Talon unit with the antlers removed, but the portrait wasn't updated to reflect the change.
Locked Out of the Fight: Cyclone lasts a good 20 seconds and prevents affected units from doing anything or taking damage for its duration.
Support Party Member: The Druid of the Talon is a caster whose spells are aimed at hindering the enemy. Using Cyclone removes an enemy unit from combat, and their Faerie Fire spell lowers a unit's armor.

Chimaera

The Chimaera of Ashenvale Forest are territorial beasts who have nonetheless formed bonds with Night Elves. The flying two-headed creatures breathe bolts of lightning from one head and corrosive acid from the other.

Achilles' Heel: The Chimaera is the only air unit incapable of attacking other air units, besides Troll Batriders (which does not really count because they have Unstable Concoction).
Airborne Artillery: Chimaera outrange defensive structures with Corrosive Breath and thus can act as an alternative to Glaive Throwers that can also devastate heavy armor targets with lightning, but they require support against air-to-air threats.
Anti-Infantry: The Chimaera's attack against land units splashes and deals extra damage to enemies with the heavy armor type, which means the Chimaera could demolish groups of these types of heavy melee units. However, unlike Frost Wyrms and Gryphon Riders, it could also damage allies, so if you had your own melee tanks (Bears, Mountain Giants), they could be hit by friendly fire. This was eventually patched out.
Anti-Structure: Researching Corrosive Breath gives the Chimaera a second attack exclusive for targeting buildings that does Siege damage, making it much more effective at destroying them. The Siege attack has a range of 900, outranging all towers.
Breath Weapon: Two of them. One head breathes lightning against ground units and the other spits acid against buildings.
Glass Cannon: Like the Frost Wyrm, they're relatively fragile for their cost; their 1000 health goes down very quickly considering that almost all anti-air attacks deal bonus damage to their Light armor, and Chimaeras are not fast or cheap to deploy and cannot fight back against other air units. They're effectively flying artillery platforms capable of dealing huge area of effect damage against ground troops and sieging bases from long range, but they need to be defended while they do their work.
Mighty Glacier: The Chimaera has slightly below-average speed, but also has the highest damage of all the flying units next to the Frost Wyrm and can inflict heavy damage with its two attacks.
Multiplayer-Only Item: In Reign of Chaos, the Chimaera is the only unit that is never given to the player to use or introduced in the plot of the campaign, because the mission they would be used in was cut. They are playable in The Frozen Throne campaign, however.
Multiple Head Case: The Chimaera has two heads, each with a unique attack.
Mix-and-Match Critters: The Chimaera resembles a cross between a bird and a two-headed dragon.

Treant

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ent.gif

Walking trees created by the Keeper of the Grove.

Cannon Fodder: Treants are summoned in groups of two to four, depending on the level of Force of Nature. Regardless of the level, they are weak units.
Stone Wall: They are slow and don’t output much damage. They mostly are meat shields for the early game Night Elf units. Nature’s Blessing can make them faster and give them some more armor, but they still aren’t tanky or fast.
When Trees Attack: They are living trees created by the Keeper of the Grove's Force of Nature spell.

Ancients

Ancients are demigod-like trees who ally with the Night Elves. Night Elf structures that are classified as Ancients can uproot themselves and act as units until they are rooted again.

Balance Buff: The Frozen Throne gave Ancients the ability to attack while rooted.
Base on Wheels: Except for the Moon Well, Hunter's Hall and Chimaera Roost, all Night Elf buildings are classified as Ancients, giant trees that can uproot to move around. This means a Night Elf player can uproot a Tree of Life and walk it over to an expansion instead of building a new one.
Dual Mode Unit: When rooted, Ancients can perform all of a building's standard functions, but are immobile and rarely in any position to fight (except the Ancient Protector, the only one to possess a ranged attack). When uprooted, they can move around to engage enemies in exchange for being unable to create units, research technologies and sell items (for the Ancient of Wonders).
Healing Factor: Unlike other buildings, Ancients will slowly regenerate health at night.
Heal Thyself: They can eat a tree to heal themselves, which can save resources from a Wisp having to repair them.
Mighty Glacier: Uprooted Ancients have as many hit points as they did while they were buildings, which, aside from the Ancient of Wonders is a lot, and also inflict heavy damage. The downside is that they are by far the slowest units in the game and lose their Fortified armor, so they are mostly good for defense.
Not the Intended Use: While the Ancients' ability to uproot and fight is ostensibly used for either relocating or base defense, this also makes the Ancient of War a perfect tank for early-game creeping. Note, however, that any unit killed by the Ancient will not grant experience, so it has to be micromanaged to avoid stealing experience.
When Trees Attack: Ancients are all giant trees that can uproot to attack enemies. The Ancient Protector can also throw rocks as a ranged attack while rooted.

Mountain Giant

When the world was young, the Titans crafted giants of living stone. These Mountain Giants are docile and solitary creatures who awaken to defend their world when its tranquility is threatened. The giants' rock skin and sheer bulk make them exceptionally durable, and their sheer size gives them great strength.

Added in Frozen Throne.

Anti-Structure: Their War Club deals Siege damage, which is effective against structures and unarmored targets.
Battering Ram: With War Club, they gain Siege damage, which makes them ideal for charging at towers and crushing them into dust. Especially with Hardened Skin, which reduces damage they take by 8. Their armor type (Medium) also resists the most common tower attack type (Piercing).
Breakable Weapons: A tree can be uprooted by the giant for use as a war club but will break from repeated attacks.
Draw Aggro: Their Taunt ability forces enemies to attack them.
Gameplay and Story Integration: Being Giants made of stone, they will take up 4 slots on a transport.
Heavily Armored Mook: The Mountain Giant has one of the highest armor values of any non-hero unit, at 6. They can also research an upgrade to gain a flat damage reduction to all attacks that hit them, making units with weak attacks like Ghouls and Footmen almost useless against them.
Improvised Weapon: Their War Club ability lets them uproot a tree and use it as a weapon. The tree does more damage than its fist but breaks after enough swings.
No-Sell: Resistant Skin gives the Mountain Giant the same Contractual Boss Immunity that heroes and creeps above level 5 enjoy, making them immune to Polymorph, Possession and weakening certain debuffs.
Our Giants Are Bigger: They are gentle creatures made of stone and are the biggest land unit in the game.
Overshadowed by Awesome: Mountain Giants are very effective at tanking, can be upgraded with a special armor that makes them even harder to kill, and can serve as a substitute for hiring a strength hero from a tavern, but hiring a strength hero from said tavern at tier 1 can still be preferred. Doing the later gives you a tanking method without having to reach tier 2, and using heroes grants extra offensive and defensive options not available with Mountain Giants. At tier 3, Druids of the Claw may also be upgraded to morph into Bears who provide superior damage output and still have good bulk, which can make them overshadow Giants as well. This can change in team games however, where teammates can cover your weaknesses from focusing your play around Mountain Giants tanking.
Stone Wall: Mountain Giants are extremely durable and can Taunt enemies into attacking them, giving the Night Elves a decent damage-sponge unit. However, their attack damage is mediocre for their resource and population cost, and they attack very slowly, so they're a lot better at taking damage than dishing it out.
Telephone Polearm: They may uproot a tree and wield it as a makeshift war club. This tree eventually breaks from repeated use.
Weaksauce Weakness: Taunt forces enemies to attack the Mountain Giant but does nothing to make them focus on it, meaning it can be immediately overridden by simply ordering the taunted unit(s) to do literally anything else. However, the taunts can be chained with multiple Mountain Giants to create a more effective nuisance.

Faerie Dragon

Despite their name, Faerie Dragons are not actual dragons. They are instead mystical creatures who patrol the Emerald Dream and protect it from harmful magic. To aid this effort, they are immune to spells.

Anti-Magic: The Faerie Dragon is immune to spells, and their Mana Flare spell allows them to harm enemies who use spells themselves.
Dual Mode Unit: By default, the Faerie Dragon is an airborne Fragile Speedster with moderate attack power for its cost that uses Phase Shift to periodically avoid hits. When channeling Mana Flare, however, it gains a lot of armor and becomes stationary, trading its basic attacks and Phase Shift for the ability to zap enemies that cast spells in its presence. Unlike the Druids' form-changing abilities, Mana Flare has a limited duration and relatively long cooldown, so the Faerie Dragon can't switch forms as freely.
Fairy Dragons: They are lizard-like creatures with butterfly wings and are much larger than they would be depicted in later appearances. Despite their name, they are not actual dragons.
Mage Killer: Spell immunity and Mana Flare make Faerie Dragons very dangerous to spellcasters in their vicinity.
No-Sell: They are immune to spells, and when using Phase Shift they are immune to damage.

Avatar of Vengeance

A unit summoned by the Warden's ultimate.

Anti-Magic: The Avatar is immune to spells.
Increasingly Lethal Enemy: At a glance, the Avatar of Vengeance has less health and deals a lot less damage than most ultimate summons. However, if given the chance to summon some Spirits of Vengeance, they can output more damage than any one summon.
Lightning Bruiser: While not as strong as the Infernal or Doom Guard, the Avatar of Vengeance is still powerful, durable, and fast. However, its damage output primarily comes from its Spirits of Vengeance as the Avatar's own attack is weak for an ultimate summon.
Living Shadow: It appears as a large, shadowy version of the Warden.
Necromancer: The Avatar of Vengeance can raise Spirits of Vengeance from the corpses of other units. Unlike the Undead's Necromancer, the Avatar is limited to summoning six units.
No Ontological Inertia: If an Avatar of Vengeance dies or expires, its summoned Spirits of Vengeance die as well.
Scissors Cuts Rock: Being immune to spells, the Avatar of Vengeance is not countered by Anti-Magic spells.
The Unintelligible: The Avatar's responses are all unintelligible growls, achieved by heavily slowing and distorting snippets of the Crypt Fiend's voicelines.

Spirit of Vengeance

When an Avatar of Vengeance comes across a corpse, it can use its Spirit of Vengeance spell to create this unit. While their attacks aren't especially strong, the Spirits of Vengeance are immune to all attacks.

Invincible Minor Minion: A Spirit of Vengeance is immune to all forms of attack: they only die when their timed life expires or the Avatar that created them dies.
The Juggernaut: While their attacks are not especially powerful, a Spirit of Vengeance can only be stopped if its timed life runs out or when the Avatar that created it dies.
Scissors Cuts Rock: Like the Avatar that created them, normal counters to summoned units do not work on a Spirit of Vengeance.
Sdrawkcab Speech: Their voice responses are composed of Maiev's voicelines played backwards.
Stone Wall: Their attacks are not especially strong, only hitting slightly harder than an un-upgraded Archer. A necessary drawback, since enemies cannot hurt them in return.

Neutral Units and Creeps

Neutral Units

Goblins left the Horde after the Second War and now offer their services to whoever pays. Goblin units are hired at a Goblin Laboratory or a Goblin Shipyard in the case of the Transport ship.

Mercenary Units: Goblin units do not appear as creeps in any standard maps but can instead be hired by anyone from any neutral Goblin Laboratory (regardless of tileset). Frozen Throne added Goblin Shipyards on water-based maps, where all players can hire a Transport Ship.

Goblin Sappers

"Hello!"

A team of three Goblins armed with explosives, they can detonate themselves to damage units and destroy trees.

Action Bomb: They have no standard attacks and fight by blowing themselves up with their Kaboom! ability instead.
Anti-Structure: Their Kaboom! ability inflicts heavy damage normally and gets a massive damage bonus against buildings.
Glass Cannon: Their Kaboom! does heavy damage, but the Sappers have less health than a Worker Unit.
Suicide Attack: Kaboom! is this. Not that the Sapper seems to mind.

Goblin Zeppelin

"I laugh in the face of danger! HAHAHAHAHA!"

An airship with a Goblin pilot, the Zeppelin can transport up to 8 units by air.

Cool Airship: While not very durable, the Zeppelin is the only way to get land units over otherwise impassible terrain.
Coming in Hot: If a Zeppelin dies, all units fall out and get slowed for a duration. If the Zeppelin dies over deep water or unpathable terrain (cliffs or many trees), all units inside die.
Defenseless Transports: Like in Warcraft II, the Zeppelin cannot attack.
Gameplay and Story Integration: Siege Weapons and Kodo Beasts take up 2 slots of space in a Zeppelin, while a Siege Engine or Mountain Giant takes 4.

Goblin Shredder

A large, efficient lumber-harvesting machine. Shredders' saws are also potent for fending off attackers.

Chainsaw Good: Or buzzsaw in the Shredders' case. They are designed to harvest wood and are equipped with saws to cut down trees. They can do decent damage to enemies as well.
Money Multiplier: The money in this case is lumber. Shredders gather an insane amount of lumber and allow the player to get lumber needed for buildings and research quickly.
Superpowered Robot Meter Maids: Shredders are built to harvest wood, but they are well-armored and pack a heavy punch. Their high cost, however, keeps them from seeing much use in combat.
Worker Unit: A specialist worker meant for gathering lumber. They gather lumber much faster than any of the normal resource gatherers, bringing back enough to cover their lumber cost twice over in a single trip.

Transport Ship

On the water maps introduced in The Frozen Throne, a player can hire a ship from a Goblin Shipyard.

Cosmetically Different Sides: Transport Ships look different depending on the side that buys them, but their stats are identical.
Defenseless Transports: Transport Ships are designed as transports for land units and cannot attack.

Creeps

Anti-Magic: Creeps often have spell-using variants with spells that remove buffs, debuffs, and heavily damage summoned units, most commonly Abolish Magic (which can also be used by the Dryad).
Contractual Boss Immunity: Creeps above level 5 are immune to the Kodo Beasts' Devour, the Banshees' Possession, the Sorceress’ Polymorph and many instant-kill type skills like Charm or Transmute.
Elite Mook: High level creeps in the same line are always bigger but tend to look fancier or have more unique colors. The campaigns have literally dozens of "elite" variations on creeps that are stronger than even the strongest version of the creeps in the melee game.
The Goomba: Many maps feature weak creep camps that do not guard any neutral buildings or gold mines, but instead simply serve to help the players' starting heroes level up.
Healing Factor: Creeps regenerate health more quickly than standard units, so if they are left alone, they will recover from any damage inflicted on them.
Inescapable Net: If the Creep has "hunter" or "trapper" in its name, it will have the Ensnare ability.
Infinity +1 Element: In Frozen Throne all Creeps level 7 and higher deal Chaos damage.
The Medic: Many of the Creeps that use spells have some type of healing spell, the Priests' Heal being the most common.
Mercenary Units:
- Some maps have Mercenary Camps, which allow any player to hire certain Creeps. While some of the available Creeps have useful abilities, the ones the Mercenary Camps provide are underpowered compared to the units the player normally has access to (compare, for example, the Ogre Mauler to the Grunt - both have roughly the same stats but the Mauler is more expensive and costs more food), so they are often not worth hiring unless you need the backup immediately; their main advantage is having no training time or tech requirements, making them useful for giving your army an early boost. However, creeps with healing abilities like the Furbolg Shaman or the various Troll Priests can be pretty useful, especially for the healing starved Orc faction.
- Maps that can support six or more players have Dragon Roosts that allow the player to hire Dragons. The fully-grown Dragons are easily the strongest units outside of the campaign, and also the most expensive units in the game by a wide margin.
Money Spider: Killing Creeps gives a player gold, regardless of whether or not it made any sense for the unit in question to have any money in the first place.
Mook Commander: High-level Creeps often have auras to buff their allies, which includes an aura the player doesn't get access to called Command Aura (effectively the same aura as the Kodo Beast’s War Drums) that boosts the damage of friendly units.
Neutrals, Critters, and Creeps: Creeps are hostile to all players, guard gold mines and neutral buildings, drop items, and serve to help heroes level up before fighting actual enemies.
Optional Boss: Most melee maps have a "boss" type encounter, where the strongest creep camp(s) hangs out, sometimes guarding a valuable neutral building (Gold Mine, Marketplace, or even more rarely, a Dragon Roost). These are usually near the center of the map, but occasionally may be tucked away in some corner of the map. Though most maps are sensible with the strongest encounters on the maps fitting the estimated length of the game (for example 1v1 maps rarely have creeps over level 7), some smaller maps have disproportionally powerful and high-level creep camps. They often serve as a way to get powerful items, but there's a decent chance that if you're engaging often with your enemy or enemies, you will never get a chance to kill these "boss" encounters, as they simply take too much effort to kill when a player has to worry about being attacked by another enemy, and there's a greater fear of being ambushed by the other player while fighting the hard creeps.
Palette Swap: Most Creeps of a certain type use the same model, and their appearance is set apart with different colors or greater sizes. Others use the models of units from the main factions.
Poisonous Person: It is common for certain Creeps to have Envenomed Weapon, which causes their attacks to have a short Damage Over Time effect.
Rank Scales with Asskicking: The higher the status a Creep has, the stronger it is.
Starter Villain: The neutral creeps are this in melee games. If a player isn't trying to rush their enemy, players will be fighting creeps to level up their heroes, grab potentially useful items, and seize control of Gold Mines before trying to engage with their opponent(s). Creeps end up becoming an afterthought once players become fixated on trying to fight each other.
Vanilla Unit: Numerous creeps, especially low-level ones, do not have any passive or active abilities whatsoever.

Arachnathid

Scorpion-like creatures from Northrend. They appear to work with Nerubians.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne

Beware My Stinger Tail: They are scorpions and have stingers they attack with in addition to their claws.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: They are giant scorpions of varying sizes depending on their level.
Extra Eyes: Being arachnids, they have lots of extra eyes.
Misplaced Wildlife: Despite being native to the cold wastelands of Northrend, they can also be found in Dustwallow Marsh, a hot swamp in central Kalimdor during Rexxar's campaign.
Put on a Bus: They are nowhere to be found in World of Warcraft.
Scary Scorpions: They are giant scorpions who will attack anything that gets too close to them.

Bandits

Human criminals. The melee ones carry an axe and shield while the ranged ones throw spears. The Bandit Lord rides a horse. They are invisible and do not sleep at night.

Black Knight: Bandit Lords are literally darker Palette Swaps of the Alliance's Knights.
Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: The Bandit, Rogue and Enforcer are armed with hatchets/axes and they are ruthless highwaymen.
Dark Is Evil: Bandit Lords, the leaders of gangs of violent thieves, wear black armor.
In the Hood: Reforged gives Assassins hoods to make them more visually distinct from the Brigands.
Invisibility with Drawbacks: They all possess the Shadowmeld ability, allowing them to become invisible at night as long as they stand still.
Javelin Thrower: Brigands and Assassins are armed with javelins, with the ones used by Assassins being envenomed.
Light Is Not Good: The Bandit Lord has the Paladin's Devotion Aura and Divine Shield spells, but having a Paladin's spells doesn't mean that he isn't a murderer and a thief.
Palette Swap: The Bandit Lord is a reskin of the Knight with a red and black color scheme. The same goes for the regular hatchet/axe-wielding bandits, who use the same animations as the Footman^note.
Poisoned Weapons: Assassins carry envenomed javelins (although their tooltips erroneously refer to them as envenomed bolts).
Stealthy Mook: All bandit types have Shadowmeld, letting them turn invisible when idle at night. As they also do not sleep at night, this means they will always get the first hit in if engaged at nighttime.

Blue Dragonspawn

Centauroid blue dragon-type creatures that wield spears. They are native to Northrend.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne

An Ice Person: Dragonspawn Sorcerers can cast Frost Nova, freezing and damaging enemies.
Breath Weapon: Dragonspawn Overseers have an ability called Breath of Frost where they breathe ice of an area that damages and causes a short Damage Over Time effect. It is essentially the Pandaren Brewmaster's Breath of Fire, with ice instead of fire, and with the Drunken Haze Damage Over Time built in, instead of being a combo ability.
Our Centaurs Are Different: Dragonspawn have humanoid-shaped bodies from the waist up and are four-legged creatures from the waist down.

Centaurs

Half-man half-horse people that are mostly found in The Barrens. Prominent enemies in “The Founding of Durotar”.

Arch-Enemy: To the Tauren, having hunted the Bloodhoof Tribe to near extinction before the arrival of the Orcs.
Arrows on Fire: Centaur Impalers can use the Priestess of the Moon's Searing Arrows spell to enhance the damage of their bows.
Evil Counterpart: The Centaur Khan notably shares three of the Tauren Chieftain's abilities (War Stomp, Endurance Aura, and Reincarnation), befitting the rivalry between their respective races.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: They take influences from Mongols, with many of the Centaurs using bows and their leaders being called Khans.
Fragile Speedster: As one might expect, given they are part horse, all Centaurs are fast. Most of them aren't especially strong.
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: In Reforged, the ranged Sorcerers and Archers were made female, while the melee warriors remain male.
Lightning Bruiser: Centaur Khans are a bit slower than other Centaurs but hit harder than most late-game melee units while having a lot of HP, and Reincarnation (an ability they share with Tauren Chieftains) means they have to be killed twice.
Our Centaurs Are Different: They are a violent all-male race (though some of them are female in Reforged).

Corrupted Treants

Treants that have fallen under the influence of Fel Magic from the Burning Legion or Satyrs, becoming evil in the process.

Dark Is Evil: The corruption caused by the Burning Legion's magic turned the Treants evil, and their darker colors as Corrupted Treants reflect it.
Palette Swap: Of normal Treants, with their appearance altered to show their corruption by the Burning Legion.
Poisonous Person: Poison Treants have Envenomed Weapons, causing their attacks to do extra damage to their targets.
Plaguemaster: Plague Treants carry Disease Cloud, dealing Damage Over Time to non-Undead enemies that come in contact with it.
When Trees Attack: Like regular Treants, they're animate tree-men, though unlike normal Treants they're often poisonous.

Dragon

Flying reptilian beasts that breathe a particular element. They come in the varieties of Red, Blue, Green, Black, and Bronze, each with their own element (though Black and Red Dragons both breathe fire, despite Black Dragons being themed around Earth). Young Dragons are called Whelps, older ones are called Drakes, and much older ones are referred to as “Dragons”.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne are Nether Dragons, which look quite different and have their weakest unit called “Dragon Hatchlings” instead of Whelps. The Nether Dragons have a mana pool and the Cripple spell instead of Devour. Their Roosts used to share a model with the Black Dragon Roost, but they got a unique one in Reforged.

Achilles' Heel: Unlike most air units, both Drakes and Dragons have Heavy armor, which isn't weak to Piercing. Dragons themselves also have a splashing attack against ground units and they all (except Nether) have Devour. This means they are pretty good against most ground based anti-air. They can comfortably fight a group of a half dozen or so Archers/Headhunters/Riflemen/Fiends and expect to do pretty well. Their magic immunity also means that certain magical based anti-air units like Dragonhawk Riders and Troll Batriders are pretty ineffective against them too. Instead, Dragons can be crushed by physical based air-based anti-air; Hippogryphs and Gargoyles. Gargoyles are especially good because they can use Vampiric Aura, and Dragons can be affected by the Undead Orb of Corruption, making them unexpectedly easy to kill with just a few Gargoyles. A skilled Undead player can kill Dragon camps and use their treasures to try to snowball to victory.
Airborne Mook: All units in the Dragon-line are flying, though Drakes and Dragons are quite dangerous and would be more than just a Mook.
Breath Weapon: They are dragons. Each has a different Breath Weapon, though aside from cosmetics, the only difference between them is that the Blue Dragon’s ice breath slows enemies.
Elemental Dragon: Each Dragon type coincides with an element. Red and Black are associated with Fire, Blue with Ice, Bronze with Lightning, and Green with Poison. Nether Dragons appear to use demonic energies instead.
Extreme Omnivore: Dragons have the Kodo Beast’s Devour ability, letting them eat and digest any organic unit, be it living or undead. The exception is the Nether Dragon, which has the Necromancer’s Cripple instead.
Fragile Speedster: Dragon Whelps are fast but have little health and damage.
Giant Flyer: Dragons are the largest creep (by the width of their model) and they fly.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Dragons' attacks hit a small area around the target. This attack does not have Damage Discrimination and can hurt the Dragon's allies as much as enemies, so there's a risk to having them attack anywhere near your own units.
Lightning Bruiser: Drakes are as fast as Dragon Whelps, having health and damage in the range of late game melee units. Dragons trade off some of that speed, though they are still faster than the average unit. In exchange, they have the highest HP of any non-campaign unit, which Frozen Throne increased, giving them more HP than all but the sturdiest buildings. Dragons do considerable damage with their attacks, which inflict Chaos damage, so they are not reduced by any armor type.
Living Shadow: Originally, the Nether Dragons all looked like vaguely dragon-shaped shadows with purple (or Green for the Nether Dragon) auras, rather than actual beings of flesh and blood. This was reinforced by their attack projectile also being a shadowy attack, rather than a standard dragon breath. Reforged makes them purple, shark-like dragons instead.
The Juggernaut: Dragon Roosts only appear on maps that can support six or more players, because Dragons are very hard to stop even though they are the most expensive unit in the game by a wide margin. They have Heavy armor as opposed to Light armor like most flying units, so they do not take extra damage from Piercing damage, which is what most ranged units that make cost-effective Anti-Air responses use and have spell immunity so they're immune to the only damage type effective against Heavy armor. Being high-level Creeps, most abilities that would otherwise hinder them wear off very quickly.
No Mouth: The Nether Dragon line in the original game have no visible mouths, especially due to their Living Shadow appearance. This is incorporated into their animations, where their projectile launching is not a Breath Weapon and more like an aggressive wing flap. This is also likely why the Nether Dragon itself has no Devour ability and gains Cripple instead. This is dropped in Reforged, where they gain visible facial features.
No-Sell: Dragons are immune to spells.
Ridiculously Cute Critter: Dragon Whelps were not this originally, as they looked like young, undeveloped dragons and overall looked very lizard-like. They became the trope in Reforged, which gave them giant heads, oversized eyes, chubby bodies, and stubby limbs. This even carried to the Nether Dragon Hatchlings. A comparison can be seen in this video that compares all of the dragons.
Scissors Cuts Rock: Most flying units have Light armor and most ranged units do Piercing damage, which Light armor takes extra damage from. Dragonkin have Heavy armor instead, which only takes normal damage from Piercing attacks. This does leave them more vulnerable to Magic damage, but most units that inflict Magic damage have weak attacks and die too easily to be cost-effective as Anti-Air units. In addition, the large Dragons have spell immunity, taking away their armor type's only weakness.
Summon Magic: The Red Drake Egg consumable item can be used to temporarily summon a Red Drake (Reforged changed it to a Blue Drake in later patches).

Draenei

A native race of humanoids on Outland that is being hunted by the Fel Orcs. All of the Draenei seen in Warcraft III are either Broken Draenei or Lost Ones, rather than the ones seen later in World of Warcraft.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Playing with Fire: Draenei Darkslayers can cast Immolation, creating flames around them that damage enemies while the spell is active.
Sinister Scythe: All Draenei melee units use scythes as their weapons. Draenei who use magic fight unarmed, instead relying on their magic to attack.
Status-Buff Dispel: Draenei Harbingers have a unique spell called Ray of Disruption, which bounces between multiple targets dispelling any magic effects.

Furbolgs/Polar Furbolgs

Bear-people that live in Kalimdor (mostly Ashenvale forest) and Northrend.

An Ice Person: The Polar Furbolg Shaman, which is only found on tilesets with lots of ice, can cast the Lich's Frost Armor to enhance the durability of friendly units. The Polar Elder Shamans instead use Frost Nova.
Combat Medic: Both Shaman and Elder Shaman have the Rejuvenation spell. While the Polar Shaman averts it as it lacks healing spells, the Polar Elder Shaman has the Healing Wave.
Cosmetically Different Sides: The only difference between the Ashenvale Furbolgs and Polar Furbolgs is the spells their Shamans, Elder Shamans and Trackers use, otherwise they're identical.
Lightning Bruiser: Most Furbolgs have good speed, and the higher levels are extremely durable.
The Red Mage: Polar Elder Shamans have a damaging spell in Frost Nova and a healing spell in Healing Wave.
Shock and Awe: Furbolg Elder Shamans can cast Lightning Shield, which creates a shield of electricity around a target that damages enemies who get too close to it.
Shockwave Stomp: The Furbolg Ursa Warrior has the War Stomp ability, allowing it to stomp the ground and stun nearby units.
Summon Magic: The Talisman of the Wild can be used up to three times to summon a basic Furbolg with each use. The Amulet of the Wild can only be used once but summons an Ursa Warrior instead.
Wolverine Claws: Being bear-like creatures, they attack with their claws.

Ghosts

Ghosts outside the control of the Undead Scourge. While the type of Creep shares a model with the Scourge's Banshee, they are not the same unit.

Demonic Possession: Like the Banshee, they can take control of units through the Possession spell.
Palette Swap: Of the Undead's Banshee. The only thing setting them apart in appearance, aside from size, is their colors.

Gnolls

Hyena-men that are often raiders.

Anti-Magic: Gnoll Wardens cast Purge to remove buffs and damage summoned units. They're also smart enough to prioritize summons, which can cause problems for Archmages relying on their Water Elementals to tank.
Epic Flail: Except for the Gnoll Warden in Reforged and Gnoll Assassin, all Gnolls wield large flails.
Heinous Hyena: They are hyena men who are very violent.
Poisoned Weapons: Gnoll Assassins have Envenomed Weapons, causing a small Damage Over Time on their attacks.
Silly Reason for War: In the manual, they are described as fighting for dumb reasons like who has the bigger shadow.
Starter Villain: Gnolls have the distinction of being the first enemies fought in Reign of Chaos by appearing as the first enemies in the tutorial. As one might expect, the Gnolls are easy opponents. They are also the villains of the first optional quest in the Human campaign where you need to save a child from a group of them.

Golems

Golems made of rock. They do not sleep at night.

Anti-Magic: All Golem units are immune to spells, as their creators don't want other wizards using magic to take control of them.
Boulder Bludgeon: Rock and Granite Golems have the Hurl Boulder ability, which deals magic damage and stuns a target, akin to Storm Bolt. They also passively throw physical, non-stunning boulders at air units.
Dishing Out Dirt: The Stone Golem and Granite Golem can launch magic rocks that stun their targets.
Golem: They are giant man-shaped constructs created by wizards and enchanted with spells to keep other wizards from controlling them, hence their Spell Immunity.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Granite Golems have the Slam ability, which deals a lot of damage and slows land units all around, so they are quite effective against a Zerg Rush of weak units.
Lightning Bruiser: They move and attack pretty quickly. Mud Golems and Granite Golem can both slow as well, to make things worse, though the Mud Golem is more of a Fragile Speedster due to its very low health.
No-Sell: They are all Spell Immune.
Put on a Bus: Rock Golems do not return in World of Warcraft, for some reason.
Summon Magic: The Stone Token is a consumable item that allows players to summon a timed-life Rock Golem.

Harpies

Flying bird-women from the Barrens.

Airborne Mook: All harpies are air units.
Always Chaotic Evil: All harpies encountered in Warcraft III are evil creatures who kill for fun.
Blow You Away: Harpy Queens can cast Cyclone to temporarily remove enemies from combat.
Combat Medic: Harpy Queens have the Rejuvenation spell which they can use to heal themselves or their minions.
Fragile Speedster: Weaker harpies are not especially tough or hard-hitting, but they are fast.
Harping on About Harpies: Their bodies are shaped like human women's, but their arms end in bird wings and their legs from the calves down are those of birds.
One-Gender Race: All harpies are female.
Pointy Ears: Reforged added pointed ears to the Harpies' portraits to match their appearance in World of Warcraft.
Stripperiffic: Harpies have nothing beyond a few strips of cloth for clothing.

Heretics

Evil human priests that dabble in the dark arts.

Animate Dead: Heretics can cast Raise Dead to create Skeleton Warriors.
In the Hood: As they are PaletteSwaps of Acolytes, the Heretics all wear hoods.
Palette Swap: They share their model with the Acolyte in the original game, though tinted different colors. They are not classified as Undead in spite of this.

Hydras

Three headed water dwelling dragon-like creatures. They spit acid and are amphibious.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Asteroids Monster: Since Hydras growing heads after losing them isn't possible in the game's mechanics, whenever an Ancient Hydra dies, it splits into two Hydrae, each of which splits into two Hydra Hatchlings, which can no longer split.
Extreme Omnivore: The Ancient Hydra has Devour, letting it swallow and digest any organic unit.
Healing Factor: Referencing the Hydra of Classical Mythology growing heads back after losing them, Hydras regenerate HP faster than other creeps. The higher level of the Hydra, the faster they heal, with the strongest, the Ancient Hydra, regenerating more HP per second than some units can do in an attack.
Mighty Glacier: Ancient Hydras might be slow, but they have the same HP as a Mountain Giant and hit harder than a siege unit.
Multiple Head Case: All Hydras have three heads.
Our Hydras Are Different: They are three-headed amphibious reptiles. They have a Dragon's voiceset, which kind of implies they are akin to water dragons.
Poisonous Person: Most Hydras attack by spitting poison and have the Slow Poison ability, dealing a short-duration damage over time with a heavy slow attached.

Jungle Stalker

Large, green bipedal beasts. As their name suggests, they are from the jungles.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Palette Swap: In the original Warcraft III, they were a Palette Swap of the Wendigo creeps. Reforged redesigns them as the bog beasts introduced in World of Warcraft (big brutish creatures made of vines and swamp flora).

Kobolds

Small rat-men. They are often digging tunnels and fight with shovels.

Critical Hit Class: Kobold Tunnelers and Taskmasters have the Bash ability, giving their attacks a chance to stun the target and deal bonus damage.
The Goomba: While they can debilitate units in various ways, all Kobolds tend to be rather weak. Even their strongest type, the Kobold Taskmaster, only tends to be as strong as a medium creep of other types.
Our Kobolds Are Different: They are small aggressive rat creatures. As to be expected from their small size, they are the weakest type of Creep in terms of stats.
Shovel Strike: Kobolds tend to wield shovels as weapons.
Takes One to Kill One: The Kobold Tunneler is one of the very few units with Normal attacks and Medium armor, making them weak to their own attack type and thus more vulnerable to other melee units.

Makrura

Lobster-men found in tropical locations.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Aquatic Mook: Makrura appear on maps with a lot of water. Despite being a lobster, it cannot cross deep water.
Armored But Frail: Makrura all have very high armor value (6, as much as a Mountain Giant without any upgrades) but relatively low health for their levels. This makes them vulnerable to magical casters.
- The Makrura Tidecaller's skillset is made to take advantage of this. It has Frost Armor, which adds 3 more armor to its target, and it uses Heal, which is highly effective because each Makura's health point is very hard to deplete.
- This is perhaps most visible with their ultimate creep, the Makrura Tidal Lord. He has 800 Health, when most level 7 creeps have around 950-1100, and he has Devotion Aura which adds Armor to all nearby allies.
Elemental Armor: Makrura Tidecallers can cast Frost Armor to boost the durability of themselves and their allies.
Enemy Summoner: Makrura Deepseers can summon the weaker Makrura Prawns to temporarily fight for them.
Giant Enemy Crab: Or giant lobsters in their case. They have a humanoid upper body, but four lobster legs below the waist.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Makrura Tidal Lords have the Pit Lord's Cleaving Attack, causing their attacks to damage enemies in a small radius.
Top-Heavy Guy: From the chest up, the Makrura are bulky lobstermen. From the torso down they are much skinnier, with their stomach and legs being thinner than their bulky claws.

Mammoths

Elephant-like creatures from Northrend.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Faster Than They Look: Like real-life elephants, they are faster than they appear.
Mammoths Mean Ice Age: Mammoths are only found in the icy regions of Northrend.
Vanilla Unit: Aside from impressive stats, they don’t have any abilities.

Magnataur

Centaur-mammoths from Northrend.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

An Ice Person: Magnataur Reavers and Destroyers have a spell called Frost Bolt, which functions the same as a Mountain King's Storm Bolt but with a bolt of ice instead of a hammer.
Anti-Magic: All Magnataurs are immune to spells.
Lightning Bruiser: Even the basic Magnataur Warrior has high HP, and all of them are Faster Than They Look.
Our Centaurs Are Different: Magnataurs are giants from the waist up and mammoths from the waist down.

Mur'gul

An odd cousin to the Murloc. The Mur’gul appear to be mutated and more powerful.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Aquatic Mook: Mur'guls only appear on maps with a lot of water and can cross water like land.
Forced Transformation: Mur'gul Shadowcasters can use the Shadow Hunter's Hex to temporarily turn enemies into harmless critters.
More Teeth than the Osmond Family: They have a mouth full of pointed teeth.

Murloc

Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!

Fish men. Often very weak.

Aquatic Mook: While they appear in a wide variety of maps, you usually find them near water such as lakes or rivers. In Frozen Throne, they gained the ability to cross water.
Early Installment Character-Design Difference: They had fins on their backs in Reign of Chaos, but they were changed to spikes in Frozen Throne.
The Goomba: Murlocs are some of the first enemies encountered in the tutorial campaign and are easily among the weakest Creeps.

Mutants

Mutated humans or humanoids.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Body Horror: The Dalaran Mutant in the original Warcraft III has an oddly shaped head with a jawbone that stretches down past its neck. In Reforged, it has a more zombie-like appearance with crystals growing out of its back.
Palette Swap: Of the campaign-only Zombie unit. The Dalaran Mutant's skin is much more rotten looking and horrific.

Nerubians

Spider people from Northrend.

All Webbed Up: Like their undead counterparts, Nerubians cannot attack air units. The Nerubian Webspinner can use Web however, so some groups of them can still threaten air units.
Animate Dead: Many of the Nerubians can cast Raise Dead to create Skeleton Warriors from corpses.
Asteroids Monster: Some Nerubians spawn smaller Spiderlings when they die. The Mercenary Camp says it's because they carry their young into battle.
Giant Spider: Massive centaur-like spiders, in their case.
Palette Swap: Of Crypt Fiends, as Crypt Fiends are undead Nerubians.
The Remnant: Nerubians encountered as Creeps are what remains of an empire wiped out by the Scourge.

N'raqi

A race of squid-faced humanoids from Northrend. They are worshippers of the Old Gods, called Faceless Ones by the Nerubians. They have two distinct creep lines, the low-level orange skinned "Unbroken" creeps and the high-level purple skinned "Faceless One" creeps.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Animate Dead: Faceless One Deathbringers can cast the Death Knight's Animate Dead to bring fallen units under their control: friend or foe.
Carry a Big Stick: N'raqui carry large maces.
Cthul Humanoid: They have tentacles for heads and hands. For bonus points, they are servants of the Old Gods, Shout Outs to the Cthulhu Mythos.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Their given name isn't revealed until World of Warcraft, so they are only known by the label given by the Nerubians.
Law of Chromatic Superiority: The purple skinned Faceless Ones are quite a bit more powerful than the orange-skinned Unbroken creeps, which are generally low leveled. Reforged has the progression of the weakest Unbroken being orange to the strongest being light purple. The weaker Faceless One Trickster is dark purple, while the stronger Faceless One Terrors and Deathbringers are reddish-purple and crimson respectively.
Nonindicative Name: They are called Faceless Ones by the Nerubians, even though they have eyes, and therefore faces.

Ogres

"It's clobbering time!"

Large, brutish humanoids, often with two heads. They used to be part of the Horde.

Attack Speed Buff: As the original caster of Bloodlust in Warcraft II, the Ogre Magi can buff an ally's attack speed for increased offense.
Carry a Big Stick: As opposed to using their fists like in Warcraft II, all Ogres carry large clubs.
Demoted to Extra: Originally the Horde's hard-hitting brutes, they are now neutral creeps that would fight even their former allies.
Elaborate Equals Effective: In Reforged, the more powerful the Ogre, the fancier their club gets.
Guest-Star Party Member: For a small section of The Founding of Durotar, the player gets a base and can train Stonemaul Ogres alongside the regular Horde units; aside from having only a single head, they're statistically identical to their regular counterparts. Stonemaul Ogres also appear among the AI-controlled allies in the final chapter of the campaign.
Informed Ability: The Ogres are supposedly very strong. The basic Ogre Warrior is actually weaker than a Footman or Grunt, both of whom are much smaller than them; the higher-tier Ogres do live up to the reputation, though.
Multiple Head Case: Most Ogres have two heads, which are prone to arguing with each other.
Shoulders of Doom: The Ogre Lord in Reforged has massive armor plates on his shoulders.
Walking Shirtless Scene: All Ogres besides the Ogre Lord are bare-chested in the original game. In Reforged, this is only case for Ogre Warriors; the Ogre Magi has a robe that covers part of his upper body, and the Mauler wears armor like the Ogre Lord.

Polar Bears

Amphibious white bears in Icecrown. They are durable and strong but have no abilities.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Bears Are Bad News: Being Creeps, these bears will attack any units the player sends near them.
Palette Swap: They use the model of the Druid of the Claws' Bear Form and Beastmaster’s Bear, only they are colored white.
Vanilla Unit: Aside from being strong and able to swim, they have no abilities.

Quillboar

Pig-Men native to the Barrens.

Combat Medic: As their name implies, Razormane Medicine Men can heal their allies by summoning Healing Totems, on top of being decent melee fighters.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Quillboars are essentially humanoid boars with spines, like porcupines.
Pig Man: They are a race of humanoid boars who can fire quills.
Summon Magic: Razormane Medicine Men can use Feral Spirit, though rather than summoning wolves, they summon boars.

Renegade Wizards

Human wizard criminals. Often paired with the Bandit line of creeps.

An Ice Person: Rogue Wizards can cast Frost Armor to boost the armor of other units.
Animate Dead: The Dark Wizard can cast Raise Dead to create Skeleton Warriors.
Forced Transformation: The Dark Wizard can cast Polymorph, temporarily keeping targets from attacking or using abilities.
Grumpy Old Man: They all share audio with the Archmage, so their quotes paint them as total grouches.
Lightning Bruiser: The Dark Wizard is much faster than the weaker creeps of this type, on top of being the strongest.
Palette Swap: The Apprentice Wizard is one to the Alliances' Priests being human instead of elven, lacking the latter's Prophet Eyes (yet still having blue glowing eyes); their model is consequently shared with the Chaplain. The rest are a Palette Swap of the Archmage.
Shock and Awe: The Renegade Wizard uses Purge and Lightning Shield, both spells involving electricity.

Revenants

Independent undead spirits bound to suits of evil-looking armor and imbued with themed magical abilities.

Animated Armor: They are animated suits of armor and have no visible bodies.
Black Magic: Death Revenants cast Raise Dead, Animate Dead, and Death Coil, spells that create undead units that heal the undead and damage the living units, respectively.
Carry a Big Stick: Revenants wield huge metal clubs.
Early-Installment Weirdness: Though introduced as primarily undead creatures, this aspect of Revenants is mostly dropped in later appearances, with them being entirely elemental in themed armor. All that remains are a couple allusions to Death Revenants, and even then, they aren't classed as undead.
Elemental Powers: Aside from the Death Revenant, Revenants use different spells depending on their element.
- Fire Revenants use Immolation, burning units around them.
- Lightning Revenants cast Chain Lightning and Purge, the latter being an Anti-Magic spell that electrocutes the target.
- Frost Revenants cast Blizzard and Ice Revenants cast Frost Nova. The former calls down a barrage of icicles, and the latter damages a target and slows it.
- Sea Revenants mostly use spells involving water, like Crushing Wave (which sends a wave of water) and spells that summon Water Elementals. They were introduced in The Frozen Throne.
Elemental Zombie: Effectively what Revenants are, being hybrid Undead and Elemental beings, though they are more like ghosts than zombies.
The Faceless: Revenants have no visible face beneath their helmets, though since they are spirits, they likely don't have faces at all.
Immune to Mind Control: They are undead separate from the Scourge and are in fact somehow immune to the psychic control that Ner'zhul can use to enslave undead. They are among the few hostile units in the final Scourge mission in The Frozen Throne, guarding the Obelisks from Illidan and Arthas alike.
Lightning Bruiser: Death Revenants are fast, have as much HP as an Infernal, hit hard, and have a high attack speed.
Necromancer: Death Revenants cast Raise Dead, creating Skeleton Warriors, and Animate Dead, reviving fallen units.
Our Ghosts Are Different: Revenants in Warcraft III are undead spirits bound to elemental armor, rather than a Revenant Zombie.
The Speechless: They have no actual dialogue; all of their responses are non-verbal noises.
Summon Magic:
- Revenants of the Depths have a spell called Summon Sea Elemental, which summons a Sea Elemental, a unit somewhat stronger than the basic Water Elemental.
- The Ice Shard item allows players to summon a temporary Ice Revenant.

Salamanders

Large, mostly red stegosaurus type creatures that breathe fire.

Breath Weapon: They breathe fire.
Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Salamanders have the overall appearance of a Stegosaurus, apart from their horns, and they breathe fire.
Extreme Omnivore: Salamander Lords can use Devour to consume any organic unit.
Fiery Salamander: They are huge firebreathing lizards that resemble the Stegosaurus.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Attacks from Salamanders have a small area of effect.
Mighty Glacier: Salamanders do not get any faster with the stronger versions. The Salamander Lord does not need any speed since it has more HP than a Mountain Giant and has a short cooldown for its powerful attacks.
Palette Swap: They're red versions of the green Thunder Lizards (except the Vizier Salamander, which is purple for some reason).
Playing with Fire: Aside from breathing fire, an adult Salamander can cast Immolation, dealing damage to enemies who get too close to them, and Firebolt, which damages and stuns a single target. Salamander Lords trade out Firebolt for Rain of Fire, which calls down a barrage of flames on an area.

Sasquatch

Brown furry bipedal beasts that live in the forests.

Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: They are large furry humanoid creatures with big horns.
Horned Humanoid: They have huge horns.
Lightning Bruiser: Even the normal Sasquatch is stronger than a non-upgraded Orc Grunt. The higher-level ones are stronger than a Knight, while being just as fast as one. In addition to having almost as much HP as a Tauren, an Ancient Sasquatch has Reincarnation, meaning it has to be killed twice.
Summon Magic: All types of Sasquatch above the basic one can cast Force of Nature to summon Treants.

Satyrs

"The shadows call!"

Corrupted Night Elves that joined the Burning Legion, turning into goat-like people.

Fauns and Satyrs: A villainous example. Satyrs were originally Night Elves who sided with the Burning Legion and changed into their current form.
Gender Flip: In Reforged, Satyr Shadowdancers were changed from male to female.
Lightning Bruiser: Satyr Hellcallers, in addition to being the strongest type of Satyr, are also the fastest.
Mana Burn: Satyr Soulstealers can use the eponymous spell to drain mana and deal damage.
Necromancer: Satyr Soulstealers can cast Raise Dead to create Skeletons from corpses. Hellcallers instead use Animate Dead, temporarily reviving dead units.
The Quisling: Satyrs aided the Burning Legion in their first invasion and continue to aid them in the second.

Sea Giants

Anchor wielding amphibious extremely bulky fish-like humanoids, but distinct from the Naga or Murlocs.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Anchors Away: Fitting their sea theme, they use giant anchors as weapons.
Our Giants Are Bigger: They are large, teal-skinned humanoids. Though compared to some other Creeps, they are not that big.
Spin Attack: Their trademark ability is Pulverize, which lets them deal damage in an area on some of their attacks. They have a special attack animation for when it procs, in which they spin with their anchor in hand.

Skeletal Orcs

Reanimated Orc skeletons.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Dem Bones: Reanimated skeletons of orcs from the Old Horde.
Magic Knight: Skeletal Orc Champions can cast Death Coil, damaging living units and healing undead ones, in addition to the strongest creep of their kind.
Non-Human Undead: They are undead orcs, as opposed to undead humans.

Skeletons

Skeleton Warriors and Archers that aren’t part of the Scourge.

Annoying Arrows: The basic Skeleton Archer does not do a lot of damage. The stronger versions of it avert this trope.
Arrows on Fire: Burning Archers can enhance the damage of their bows by casting Searing Arrows.
Dem Bones: Skeletons animated by necromancy.
My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Skeleton Warriors encountered as creeps are not summoned units and have no timed life (unless they're summoned by another creep casting Raise Dead). They're also different units from the ones summoned by the Scourge, meaning that if you somehow gained control of one or summoned them through Book of the Dead, they do not benefit from Undead weapon and armor upgrades.
Summon Magic: The Book of the Dead item allows players to summon a pack of Skeleton Warriors and Skeleton Archers.
Trick Arrow: Skeletal Marksmen have the Cold Arrows ability, giving bonus damage to their attacks and slowing enemies with them.

Sludge Beasts

Slime-like monsters.

Asteroids Monster: A King Mook sludge in the Frozen Throne bonus campaign splits numerous times.
Blob Monster: Originally, they were the game's take on Slime monsters, though they are considerably more horrific than the average fantasy slime.
Combat Tentacles: The primary method of melee combat for the Sludge Minions and Monstrosities is to strike a target with slimy tentacles.
Evil Is Visceral: Reforged takes this approach to them, making them more Lovecraftian in design, giving them rows of teeth, removing their eyes, and making their skin look more fleshy, instead of slimy. The Sludge Flinger even incorporates a human skull onto it's own head.
More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Reforged trades in their Extra Eyes and adds extra rows of teeth to their portraits.
Signature Move: All of the Sludge monsters have Sorceress's Slow spell. It does not make them much of a threat in combat, but it makes them very inconvenient to run from or to walk back to base after killing them.

Spiders

Giant Spiders. Some spit poison and others attack up close.

Asteroids Monster: Brood Mothers split into two smaller spiders upon death.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: Massive spiders of varying sizes.
Extra Eyes: Being spiders, they have more eyes than a human.
Giant Spider: Nothing fancy about their appearance, they are just really big spiders.
Inescapable Net: Despite being spiders, Giant Spiders and Brood Mothers have Ensnare rather than Web. The neutral AI will use this on air units to be able to hit them but also melee units to isolate them.
Poisonous Person: Giant Spiders, Spitting Spiders and Brood Mothers have Envenomed Weapon, which inflicts a short Damage Over Time effect.

Spider Crabs

Giant Crabs.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Giant Enemy Crab: They are giant crabs. Oddly, they only have six legs.
The Goomba: Of the Sunken Ruins tileset, being a Vanilla Unit that comes in large numbers.
Nonindicative Name: Despite their name, they do not bear much resemblance to real spider crabs, and look more like giant, elongated versions of more common crabs.
Vanilla Unit: None of them have any abilities. Unlike some of the others in the Sunken Ruins tileset they also are not amphibious.

Stormreaver Warlocks

Evil Orc warlocks of the Stormreaver Clan (where Gul’Dan is from).

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

The Bus Came Back: After being absent in Warcraft II and Reign of Chaos, Necrolytes make a return in The Frozen Throne, though as neutral creeps.
Evil Sorcerer: They were evil Orcs who used Black Magic in service to Gul'dan, though by Warcraft III they are mostly trying to stay alive.
Necromancer: Stormweaver Warlocks can cast Animate Dead, reviving as an undead unit any dead unit that leaves a corpse.
The Remnant: They are survivors of the Stormreaver Clan after Doomhammer had it crushed.
Shock and Awe: With the exception of the Apprentices (which have no abilities) all of them have one lightning-related spell: Hermits have Purge, Necrolytes have Chain Lightning and Warlocks have Monsoon.
Squishy Wizard: The Apprentices and Hermits are weak and do not have much HP. Averted with the Necrolyte and Warlock who can take some punishment.

Thunder Lizard

Green skinned lightning spitting stegosaurus creatures.

Breath Weapon: They breathe bolts of lightning.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Thunder Lizards have Slam while Storm Wyrms have Chain Lightning, both of which deal massive area of effect damage. All of them have a splash attack as well.
Mighty Glacier: The Storm Wyrm is as slow as the two weaker types but has more than double their HP and almost double their damage.
Shock and Awe: As their names imply, they attack with electricity. Lightning Lizards can cast Purge, and Storm Wyrms can cast Chain Lightning and Lightning Shield.
Shockwave Stomp: The Thunder Lizard can cast Slam, stomping the ground to damage and slow nearby units.
Swallowed Whole: Storm Wyrms have the ability to Devour organic units, digesting them gradually for Damage Over Time.

Trolls (Forest/Ice/Dark)

"Let the killing begin!"

Tribal humanoids with elongated features, formerly part of the Horde. They are all ranged units.

Combat Medic: All Troll variants have a Level 2 Priest and Level 4 High Priest capable of using the Heal spell.
Demoted to Extra: Like Ogres above, Forest Trolls used to be part of the Horde as its main ranged fighters, while now they're just neutral creeps that appear in Lordaeron maps and will attack their former allies.
Thrall: Forest trolls! I still can't believe they were ever a part of the Horde.
Palette Swap: While different types of Trolls appear in a variety of tilesets, each type is functionally identical to the Troll of a different type if they are the same rank. Their only differences are the spells the Priests and High Priests can use (they all have Heal, while the Forest Trolls have Abolish Magic and Inner Fire, the Ice Trolls have Frost Armor, and the Dark Troll has Sleep), and Ice Trolls have a different set of voicelines.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Like the Trolls in Warcraft II, they throw axes at enemies.

Turtles

Sea Turtles, amphibious land units that all have Spiked Shells to return damage to melee attackers.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Attack Reflector: All of them have a passive ability called Spiked Shell that reflects a portion of melee attack damage the enemy inflicts back at them.
Extreme Omnivore: Dragon Turtles can use Devour to eat and digest any organic unit.
Law of Chromatic Superiority: The red Dragon Turtle is much stronger than the green Giant Sea Turtles, who are stronger than the blue baby sea turtles.
Mighty Glacier: The Dragon Turtle has two thousand HP, the highest of any creep next to a Dragon, Deeplord Revenant, or Magnataur Destroyer, and hits like a siege unit.
Stronger with Age: Implied since the weakest of their type is the Sea Turtle Hatchling, and the stronger types keep getting bigger and bigger.

Tuskarr

Walrus-men from Northrend.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Barbaric Battleaxe: Melee Tuskarr units use icy one-handed axes.
Javelin Thrower: Ranged Tuskarr units throw spears.
Wily Walrus: They are walrus men who are hostile to units controlled by players.

War Golems

Golems made of armor, instead of rock. They do not sleep at night.

Animated Armor: Unlike the Golems carved from earth, War Golems are animated suits of armor.
Anti-Magic: Like Golems built from earth, War Golems are immune to spells.
Art Evolution: In classic Warcraft III they are themed off generic suits of armor with horns and the same bulbous proportions as their earth Golem counterparts. Reforged redesigns them to match the Dwarven Golems seen in World of Warcraft, which have a much different aesthetic and appear to be wholly or partly made of carved stone rather than being animated metal armor.
Law of Chromatic Superiority: Siege Golems are reddish-purple, instead of silver/grey like the Battle and War Golems. Reforged has Battle and War Golems stone-colored, while Siege Golems are tinted more purple.
No-Sell: Immune to magic, just like the rock-based golems.
Stone Wall: They have very high health and very low damage for their level, on top of their magic immunity making them harder to kill. The Siege Golem is a good example, where it has 1900 health but only does around 30 damage a hit (most level 9 creeps have around 1200-1500 HP and deal around 50-70 a hit)

Water Elementals

Rogue water elementals, not tied to an Archmage.

An Ice Person: Berserk Elementals can cast Frost Nova.
Making a Splash: They are Water Elementals and attack by throwing masses of water at their enemy.
No-Sell: Enraged and Berserk Elementals are immune to spells.

Wendigo

Powerful bipedal beasts from Northrend.

Lightning Bruiser: All Wendigos are fast, and all past the basic type have almost a thousand HP. Ancient Wendigos have 1500 HP and have Reincarnation, meaning they have to be killed twice.
Wendigo: They are fur-covered humanoids with moderate-sized horns.
Wolverine Claws: They attack with huge claws on their hands.

Wildkin (known as Owlbears in Reign of Chaos)

Bipedal bear men with bird heads.

Critical Hit Class: The Berserk Wildkin has Bash, which means its attacks can stun. Combined with War Stomp, they can potentially stun lock a target for over 4 seconds.
Early-Bird Boss: In contrast to the Human Campaign of Reign of Chaos having a bunch of weak Gnolls as the targets of an optional quest, the first mission of the Sentinels Campaign in The Frozen Throne has a very strong Berserk Wildkin as the first optional quest objective. It can easily kill the level 2 Maiev if the player is not careful and shows the increase in difficulty from the original game.
Lightning Bruiser: All Wildkin move and attack fast. The Berserk Wildkin has a lot of HP and hits like a truck.
Mix-and-Match Critters: They have bodies like bears, but the heads of owls. Before Frozen Throne, they were called Owlbears, but the developers were forced to change the name.

Wolves

Wild wolves, found in both forests and cold, frosty areas.

Canis Major: These wolves are as big as the ones ridden by the Orc Raiders.
Critical Hit Class: Giant and Dire Wolves have Critical Strike.
Glass Cannon: None of the wolf creeps are durable, but due to their fast attack rate and critical strike, they output a lot of physical damage. This is especially prevalent with a Dire Wolf due to its Roar ability, which boosts the damage of all nearby allies.
Fragile Speedster: All the wolves are fast, though even the strongest are not particularly powerful.
Palette Swap: Of the wolves summoned by the Far Seer, their color scheme indicates they are flesh and blood as opposed to spirits.

Demons

The Infernals, Doom Guards, and Fel Hounds introduced in Reign of Chaos are considered their own category of Creep even though they are radically different units. Demons do not sleep at night.

Infinity +1 Element: Most Demons, regardless of level, deal Chaos damage so their attacks inflict full damage to all armor types. Infernal Machines, Sayaadi, and Voidwalkers are exceptions, where their low-level creeps have normal or piercing attack types instead.
My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Outside of a Dreadlord or Pit Lord ultimate, these Demons can be summoned if a player finds the right item, though they are considered summoned units, so they have a timed life. This doesn't apply if they are fought as Creeps or as enemies in the campaign.

Doom Guards

A tall, winged, red-skinned humanoid that wields a giant burning sword. Despite appearing to be a warrior, he has several powerful spells.

Big Red Devil: Taking the place of the Daemon, they act as the traditionally huge red demon with bat wings.
Boss in Mook's Clothing: Doom Guards are strong enough to take on low-level heroes one on one and expect to win.
Call-Back: Despite not being called Daemons, they visually resemble the equivalent Orcs and Humans summon and fill a similar role as an ultimate fighter. Unlike the returning Water Elementals, summoned Doom Guards are in a class of their own with nearly twice the amount of health of a level 3 Water Elemental and an array of spells to support an army.
Doomy Dooms of Doom: They are called Doom Guards, and they live up to the name.
Elite Mook: They are elite warriors of the Burning Legion.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Their attacks have a small AOE, and they have the Tauren Chieftain's War Stomp spell, which damages enemies around them.
Jack of All Trades: Their spell list has Anti-Magic with Dispel Magic, Area of Effect damage with Rain of Fire (which was later added to the Pit Lord), a debuff with the Necromancer's Cripple, and they hit enemies around them with the Tauren Chieftain's War Stomp. It only has the level 1 versions of Rain of Fire and War Stomp, but they are still powerful tools for a non-hero unit.
Magic Knight: They are strong warriors who can also use an array of spells.
Mighty Glacier: The Doom Guards are powerful, especially after they got a buff to their HP, bringing them up to the level of Mountain Giant. Their only weakness is that they are slow.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: They are called Doom Guards. If that isn’t enough to make one run, seeing them fight will be.
Playing with Fire: They have the Rain of Fire ability. The Doom Guard's ranged attack against air units also launches a fireball from their flaming swords.
Purposely Overpowered: Players don't get access to Doom Guards outside of a rare item called a Demonic Figure or a Pit Lord's Doom spell, as they are far too strong to allow a player to build normally.
Wings Do Nothing: They have an impressive pair of wings on their backs, but like the Dreadlord and Pit Lord, they're incapable of flight.

Fel Hound/Stalker

A four-legged demonic beast. In Frozen Throne, the Fel Hounds became their own Creep type for certain maps and were renamed Fel Stalkers.

Fragile Speedster: The Fel Beasts are fast but have little health and damage.
Lightning Bruiser: Fel Stalkers and Ravagers have the Fel Beasts' speed and none of their fragility.
Mana Burn: Fel Stalkers can cast Mana Burn to remove some of the target's mana and damage them.
Status-Buff Dispel: The Fel Ravager's Devour Magic removes buffs and debuffs in an area and converts them into health and mana for the Ravager.
Summon Magic: The Spiked Collar item can be consumed to summon a Fel Stalker to do the user's bidding.

Infernal

Near mindless amalgamations of fel energy created by the Burning Legion. On some maps, they appear as Creeps.

For tropes that apply to this unit, see the Undead folder.

Eredar Warlocks

Demonic sorcerers that work for the Burning Legion.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Badass Cape: They all sport impressive-looking capes, except the Warlocks in Reforged, who trade the cape in for a pair of wings.
Big Red Devil: The Eredar Warlocks are big red demons. In Reforged they have the look down to a T by trading in their capes for a pair of wings.
Black Speech: Their voice lines are not in English but rather in Eredun (also known as Demonic).
Evil Sorcerer: Eredar are demons who wield Black Magic, and each type of Eredar uses at least one spell taken from units associated with the Burning Legion.
Herd-Hitting Attack: All of their attacks damage units in a radius.
Palette Swap: Of the Warlock hero from the campaign.
Playing with Fire: Sorcerers can cast Firebolt, which acts like the level 1 version of the Mountain King’s Stormbolt but with a fireball instead of a hammer. It inflicts heavy damage and stuns a target.
Squishy Wizard: The Eredar Sorcerers have low HP. The Diabolists and the Warlocks, not so much, the latter having as much HP as a Frost Wyrm.
Summon Magic: Diabolists have their own version of Parasite that summons Lesser Voidwalkers if the infected target dies.
Winged Humanoid: Warlocks in Reforged have a pair of wings that serve no purpose.

Felguards

Demonic warriors that wield large oddly shaped swords.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Herd-Hitting Attack: Bloodfiends and Overlords have the Pit Lord’s Cleaving Attack, causing their attacks to damage enemies in a small radius.
Spikes of Villainy: Felguards have massive spikes growing out of their backs.

Infernal Machines

Fel-blasting machines. They have splashing attacks and are classified as mechanical.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

BFG: All of them mount large cannons.
Enemy Summoner: Infernal Juggernauts can cast Inferno, summoning Infernals.
Herd-Hitting Attack: All of their attacks splash in a radius.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: No pun intended, but Infernal Machines are the only neutral creep line that is mechanical instead of organic, which gives them immunity to a lot of spells.
Mighty Glacier: The Infernal Juggernaut has among the highest HP and damage of any Creep while being as slow as the game's Siege Engines. Not that it needs the speed.
Playing with Fire: The Infernal Machine can use Breath of Fire to damage enemies and burn them for a Damage Over Time effect.

Sayaadi

"Get a load of these."

An all-female group of demonic sadists, also called Succubi. They do not sleep at night.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

Charm Person: The Queen of Suffering has the Dark Ranger's Charm spell, allowing her to Mind Control units.
Dual Wielding: They attack with a pair of large daggers.
Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In Warcraft III, they have either deep red or bright blue skin, have wings merged with their arms, and fight with a pair of daggers. A far cry from how they look from World of Warcraft onwards, with light pink skin, wings as separate limbs that grow out of their backs, and whips as their weapon of choice.
Life Drain: The Maiden of Pain has the ability to channel Life Drain.
Lightning Bruiser: The Maiden of Pain and the Queen of Suffering, the second strongest and strongest Sayaaid creeps, respectively, have over a thousand HP, hit hard, and are fast.
Ms. Fanservice: All of them wear a leotard that shows off their ample cleavage.
Succubi and Incubi: They are scantily clad women with bat wings and horns who enjoy making seductive remarks, but mostly appear interested in inflicting pain.
Wings Do Nothing: Like Doom Guards and Dreadlords, despite having wings they cannot fly.

Voidwalker

Apparently demonic spirits seen in Outland.

Introduced in The Frozen Throne.

An Ice Person: Voidwalkers can cast Cold Arrows to enhance the damage of their attacks and slow targets. Greater Voidwalkers instead cast Frost Armor
Dark Is Evil: They are creatures of shadow seen fighting for the Burning Legion.
Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In their original Warcraft III appearance, Voidwalkers had angular, skeletal features. World of Warcraft redesigned them into amorphous blobs with arms.
Early-Installment Weirdness: Coupled with the above trope, Voidwalkers were originally ranged Squishy Wizards. In World of Warcraft they're tanky frontline fighters with little magic power.
Shock and Awe: Greater Voidwalkers cast Chain Lightning. Elder Voidwalkers cast Forked Lightning instead.

Campaign Only Units

Ships

In the campaigns of Frozen Throne, in addition to the Transports that can be hired, warships will also appear.

Cool Boat: They are heavily armed warships.
Cosmetically Different Sides: While the ships of the various factions look wildly different, their stats are identical. The transports for the Orcs and Undead even look identical.
Expy: Of the warships from Warcraft II, the Frigates are stand-ins for Destroyers, and the Battleships are stand-ins for the heavier ships.
The Voiceless: Unlike the Warcraft II ships, they have no voice lines.

Tropes exclusive to the Frigates

Anti-Air: Frigates are the only ship that can attack air units. However, they have the Normal Attack type, which is not the ideal attack to counter most Air Units.
Glass Cannon: Frigates have powerful attacks and are fast, but not especially high HP and no armor.
Mutual Disadvantage: Frigate have light armor, which is weak to Piercing and Magic, the two main attack types that flying units use on ground units.

Tropes exclusive to the Battleships

Anti-Structure: Battleships inflict Siege damage, doing extra damage to structures.
Mighty Glacier: Battleships pack far more of a punch than Frigates, with higher HP and heavy armor, but are slow and can’t hit air units.

Human Campaign Units

Captain

In a few missions, a more powerful version of the Footman appears, sometimes acting as a messenger, and other times as an obstacle to the player. The main one that appears in much of the story is Falric, who is second in command to Arthas through the entire Reign of Chaos human campaign, though he is not named in the campaign and only in later media.

For information about his character see this page.

Battle Cry: Somewhat amusingly, the Captain only has one line when he's ordered to attack a unit.^note
Captain: Foul beast!
Bling of War: The Captain's armor is far more ornate than the regular Footmen, featuring gold decorations and a winged helmet.
Cool Helmet: The Captain wears a magnificent golden helmet with wings.
Heavily Armored Mook: He has fancier armor than Footmen and a slightly higher armor value, which puts him in the range of above average for a basic melee unit.
Knightly Sword and Shield: Like the Footmen they are based on, the Captains are heroic medieval soldiers covered in full plate who wields shining swords and shields. Their officer status possibly makes them closer to actual knights as well.
Mook Lieutenant: They are stronger versions of Footmen who act as officers in Human armies.

Swordsman

The Elven armies do not use Human Footmen. Instead, they use a similar unit called the Swordsmen. Despite differences in name and appearance, it and the Footmen are otherwise the same unit.

Knightly Sword and Shield: The Swordsman wields a sword and shield like the Footmen they are based on. In Reforged, their sword becomes a falchion while their shield resembles the icon of Silvermoon.
Palette Swap: In the original game they use the same model as the Captain, but Reforged gives them their own model without a helmet.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To the Footmen, as the High Elf and Blood Elf armies are comprised largely of units based on Humans.

Villager

Human and High Elf villagers appear in a few missions. As they are not combatants or laborers, they must either be protected or killed, depending on whose side the player is on.

Non-Action Guy: They have low HP and cannot attack. Their purpose in a mission is either for the player to help them or to act as targets for the player to kill.

Archer

Elven armies lack the Dwarf Riflemen, so Archers take their place in missions where High Elves and Blood Elves appear.

Amazon Brigade: These Archers are all women.
Palette Swap: Of the Night Elf Archers. Compared to the Archers of the Night Elves, these have higher HP and higher maximum damage, but also lower minimum damage, so they are less reliable. They also cannot attack air units.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To the Elven Archers from Warcraft II, acting as ranged troops who use a bow.
Vanilla Unit: Unlike the Night Elf version, High Elven Archers don't have Shadowmeld, or indeed any ability at all.

Dragon Hawk

The High Elves leaving the Alliance means when faced with the Scourge, the Gryphon Riders are not there to aid them. To fill the hole in the unit roster, the Dragonhawk takes the Gryphon Riders' place. They have the Ensnare ability.

Inescapable Net: The Dragon Hawk can use Ensnare to immobilize foes and confine aerial ones to the ground.
Jousting Lance: The Dragonhawk's rider wields a lance which they use to shoot bolts of magic.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To the Gryphon Rider in "Path of the Damned" when the player is facing the High Elves, as the High Elves do not have any dwarves coming to their defense. They end up becoming a full unit in The Frozen Throne.

Worker

"I'm on the job."

Workers for the Elves who take the role of the Human Peasants.

Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To the Peasant during "Path of the Damned" and "Curse of the Blood Elves", where High Elves and Blood Elves are factions modeled after humans. Unlike Peasants, though, they can't turn into Militias.
Worker Unit: They take the place of the Peasant as Worker Unit for Elves.

Blood Elf Engineer

Extremely intelligent Elves that specialize in discovering new technologies and constructing powerful towers. They only appear in the secret mission "The Crossing" for "The Curse of the Blood Elves" campaign. During said mission, engineers are used to construct special towers that protect the portal allowing the Blood Elves to escape into the Outlands.

Foil: While Human Peasants are more dopey, dull-witted and down-trodden, the Elven Engineers are haughtier and speak in Technobabble almost constantly.
Insufferable Genius: In contrast to the dull-witted Peasants, the Engineer is a genius who thinks very highly of himself.
It Will Never Catch On: One of his quotes will comment that tower defense is a silly idea and it would never work, despite that being his speciality.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To the Worker during "The Crossing", however this is downplayed as Engineers specialize in creating defensive towers instead of being able to create almost all of the Blood Elves structures.
TechnoBabble: One of his Stop Poking Me! quotes has him engage in Treknobabble.

Blood Elf Lieutenant

Elite Swordsmen who Kael finds imprisoned in "The Dungeons of Dalaran".

Cool Helmet: With their model based on the Captain, the Lieutenant wears a winged helmet which carries over to their Reforged model.
Heavily Armored Mook: Like the Human Captain, they are covered head to toe in plate armor.
Knightly Sword and Shield: Like the Captain they are based on, the Lieutenant is a heroic officer who wields a sword and shield which are modified to look more appropriately elven, particularly the sword becoming a single-edged falchion.
No-Sell: Just like the Spellbreakers, Blood Elf Lieutenants are immune to negative spells.
Palette Swap: Downplayed, unlike the Swordsmen that are just resized Captains, Blood Elf Lieutenants sport modified models. Their weapons are the same yet slightly different, with their kite shields having a different design and their sword being single-edged, closer to a falchion.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To the Human Captain during Curse of the Blood Elves. Compared with the Human unit, the Lieutenant is superior in every respect aside from speed.

Jailor Kassan

An underling of Lord Garithos meant to keep Kael’thas and the Blood Elves imprisoned until they could be executed. He is not happy about having to do the work.

Almighty Janitor: No one would expect a mere jailor to have such absurd stats and skills (6000 HP, Chaos damage, Spell Immunity, a variety of spells that deal area of damage and/or stun).
Art Evolution: He looks like a normal melee Bandit in The Frozen Throne, but Reforged gives him a distinct model with a flail and wearing a chainmail hood.
Combo Platter Powers: He has War Stomp, Bash, and Chain Lightning, which seems to suggest he’s part warrior part mage.
Infinity +1 Element: His attacks deal Chaos damage. Thankfully it's not very high.
Large and in Charge: Averted. He is not given a larger model than a normal Enforcer (second strongest Bandit unit) and does not visually stand out among his troops. This is likely why he's given a brief cutscene talking to Kael'thas before fighting him.
No-Sell: He’s immune to spells.
Punch-Clock Villain: He doesn't want to fight Kael and the two have some history in the Kirin Tor but will follow Garithos' orders.
Stone Wall: Despite having 6000 health, he only deals 42 damage a hit on average which is not a lot.

Milita Captains and Militia Commanders

Elite units working for the surviving Paladins that escorted the fleeing human refugees who tried to escape the Lordaeron Capital.

Milita Captains are ranged fighters that use the model of a Brigand/Assassin, and have the Critical Strike, Command Aura and Envenomed Weapons abilities. Militia Commanders are horseback Magic Knights that use the model of the Bandit Lord, and have the Healing Wave, Hardened Skin and Devotion Aura abilities.

Elite Mooks: Much stronger than any of the regular units the Alliance can field.
Helpful Mook: While they don't do anything to directly benefit the player, they will primarily attack the exit guarded by Sylvanas, who can use Banshees to possess them and give her army some muscle to break through regular Alliance units.
Infinity +1 Element: Milita Commanders deal Chaos damage.
Mook Commander: The two of them have auras that increase either the defense or offense of their allies.
The Paladin: Implied with the Militia Commanders, given that they're horseback knights (which use the Bandit Lord model probably to set themselves apart from the regular Knights) that can use healing spells and project defensive auras, plus the fact that they work for the Silver Hand.
Unique Enemy: They only appear in the "King Arthas" mission.

Elite troops from Kul Tiras

The Elite soldiers that Daelin Proudmoore brought to Theramore to destroy the horde once and for all.

Badass Army: They are the same as human units, but with improved stats.
Purposefully Overpowered: The Kul'tiras forces are thought to be a threat to Rexxar and his party who at this point are high level heroes, all with outrageously powerful items, thus having much higher stats than standard human units.

Chaplain

Admiral Proudmoore's forces lack High Elf priests, so Chaplains appear in their place.

Palette Swap: Of the Priests used by the Human Alliance. Compared to the Priests, the colors on the Chaplains are darker and more muted.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: They are Admiral Proudmoore's equivalent of Priests, since he has few High Elves in his army.

Hydromancer

Mages who specialize in water magic under the command of Admiral Proudmoore.

Making a Splash: They can cast Crushing Wave, which releases a wave of water that damages enemies in front of them.
Palette Swap: Of the Archmage, trading in most of the hero's white and blue colors for red and black.

Admiral's Elite Guard

Elite guards under the command of Admiral Proudmoore. They are the final non-hero enemies of Rexxar's campaign.

Bodyguarding a Badass: Downplayed. Individually they are much weaker than his boss The Admiral Proudmoore, but they are still tough warriors who can keep waves of enemies at bay.
Boss in Mook Clothing: Despite looking like Foot Soldiers, they are the Admiral's most powerful troops, being able to destroy a Tauren in seconds.
Elite Mooks: They are the most powerful non-hero units in the Admiral's army, being even stronger than the Tauren of the horde.
Praetorian Guard: They protect the Admiral from the waves of the horde.
The Worf Effect: These troops often show they are serious when they kill a Tauren in seconds.

Orc Campaign Units

Slave Master

The leader of the Orcs of the Blackrock Clan who launched a raid to collect captives for a ritual sacrifice.

Carry a Big Stick: The Slave Master wields a spiked mace, fitting for a brutish warlord.
Cool Helmet: The Slave Master wears a black and gold helmet with antlers, similar to what Blackhand is depicted as wearing in Warcraft I.
Lightning Bruiser: He has good HP and speed, and hits hard.
Starter Villain: He is the first noteworthy adversary Arthas encounters in the Human campaign, being a Lieutenant to the Blademaster of the Blackrock Clan who leads the attack on Stranhbrad.
Tin Tyrant: A brutish orc warlord clad in full plate with an antlered helm. Reforged removes some of the armor, but they still retain the helm and are overall more armored than most orcs.
Unique Enemy: This type of horse-mounted, red skinned orc (which is pointedly not a Fel Orc) wielding a mace appears in "The Defense of Strahnbrad" and never appears again. Originally the model was meant to be used for an Orc hero unit called the Warlord, but it was scrapped during development.
Warm-Up Boss: While he has good stats, he has no spells or abilities, so he is less of a threat than the Hero Units players will encounter after him.

Fel Orcs

Orcs who are tempted by the power of the Burning Legion drink the blood of a powerful demon. This act grants power to the Orcs, at the cost of them falling under the control of the demon.

Anti-Structure: One of the most noticeable quirks about Fel Orcs is that buildings melt under them due to their Chaos attack type.
Artifact Mook: While it made sense for the Warsong Clan to field Fel Orc Kodo Beasts, the Fel Horde of Draenor shouldn't be able to since Kodo Beasts only live in Kalimdor, a place they wouldn't be able to reach. Presumably this was done to not reduce the already small Fel Orc tech tree even further.
Blessed with Suck: Drinking demon blood makes the orcs more powerful, at the cost of the demon who provided the blood enslaving them. Chaos Damage also is not all it's cracked up to be because they miss out on some of the Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors benefits they could get.
Healing Factor: On top of increased stats and Chaos damage, Fel Orcs also regenerate health no less than four times faster than their green skinned counterparts.
Infinity +1 Element: All Fel Orcs deal Chaos damage as opposed to whatever damage type their normal counterparts had, which deals full damage to all targets, even ones with Divine that causes all other attacks to do Scratch Damage.
Law of Chromatic Superiority: The Fel Orcs grew stronger by drinking the blood of a powerful demon and turning from green to red.
Spikes of Villainy: In Reforged, Fel Orcs have spikes of varying sizes growing out of them.

Warlock

Rather than using Shamans, the Blackrock Clan and Fel Orcs use Warlocks.

Armor Is Useless: Despite carrying a shield, they have 0 armor and the "unarmored" armor type.
The Artifact: It might be weird for a Warlock to be carrying a shield. That's because his model was going to be originally used for the Shaman.
The Bus Came Back: After being absent in the second game, the Warlocks make a return in Warcraft III, albeit only in the campaigns.
Glass Cannon: Warlocks inflict much higher damage than the caster units the player normally gets access to, though their main source of damage is that they can cast Firebolt. They still die easily if they come under attack.
Moveset Clone: Two of their three spells are lifted from the Necromancer.
Palette Swap: The Warlock comes in a non-fel version (used by the Blackrock Clan) and a fel version (used by Fel Orcs). The two versions have the exact same stats, and the only difference is skin colour (green vs red).
Playing with Fire: Warlocks can cast Firebolt, which is like the Mountain King's Stormbolt, only it uses a fireball instead of a hammer. This is the only time in the campaign the player gets a unit with this spell.
Purposely Overpowered: The player only gets to use Warlocks in one level, and it is easy to see why: on top of their Chaos Damage, they have access to the Firebolt spell, whose damage and stun duration are comparable to the level 1 version of the Mountain King's Storm Bolt. With enough Warlocks set up to hit a target with Firebolt, they can lock it into a Cycle of Hurting where it cannot attack.

Undead Campaign Units

Zombie

Humans exposed to the plague of the Undead Scourge are turned into Zombie slaves to the Scourge.

Cannon Fodder: Zombies are weak units, even more so than Ghouls, hence they only appear as enemies in the campaign.
Our Zombies Are Different: They are standard zombies with no notable abilities.

Skeleton King

A gigantic skeleton defending a base of Corrupted Ancients in Felwood.

King Mook: A massive skeleton. It's even in the name.
Legacy Boss Battle: It is the Warcraft III version of the Skeleton King from Diablo (1997). It is a powerful King Mook skeleton whose main ability is summoning a bunch of other Undead.
Magic Knight: A powerful warrior with multiple spells (Shockwave, Thorns Aura, Raise Dead and Animate Dead) at its disposal.
Mini-Boss: It is guarding a base near where Illidan starts. While quite strong, he isn't nearly as dangerous as the armies of demons on the map and Tichondrius himself, who is the boss of the mission.
Mook Commander: It carries Thorns Aura.
Necromancer: It can use both Raise Dead to summon Skeleton Warriors and Animate Dead to revive fallen units.
Optional Boss: The Skeleton King does not need to be killed to beat the mission.
Shout-Out: While not quite as explicit as The Butcher in The Frozen Throne, this unit is still one to the boss of the same name of Diablo (1997), and even fights in a similar manner.
Unique Enemy: There's only one Skeleton King, which appears in the "A Destiny of Flame and Sorrow" mission.

Sky Barge

An Undead themed zeppelin that has a skull and bat wings. Exclusively used by the enemies in The Frozen Throne Sentinel and Alliance campaigns to carry their troops.

Cool Airship: Very cool-looking. It allows the Undead to send their attack waves to separate islands.
Defenseless Transports: It cannot attack at all and is very fragile.

The Butcher

Ahhhh, fresh meat!

A massive abomination found in the depths of Magtheridon's Black Citadel (known as the Black Temple in The Burning Crusade onwards).

Ambiguous Situation: Due to Magtheridon having no undead troops and the character being a reference to "Diablo", it is ambiguous if The Butcher is canon to the game's lore.
Artifact Mook: Since Magtheridon doesn't seem to have any other undead units, it's rare for him to have an abomination among his forces.
Giant Mook: A gigantic Abomination like Bloodfeast in the Scourge Campaign, but way more powerful.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There's no buildup or hints about The Butcher. Magtheridon exclusively has demonic or Fel Orc troops, so there's not even a reason to expect an Undead Abomination.
Legacy Boss Battle: His entire purpose is to essentially be Warcraft III's version of The Butcher from Diablo (1997), with even the same voice line.
Lightning Bruiser: Unlike Bloodfeast, the Butcher is not a Stone Wall; while also having a massive healthpool, he also hits like a truck dealing four times the damage of a normal Abomination with higher attack speed (which he can increase even further with Frenzy) and Cleave for damaging multiple units at once.
Optional Boss: You can finish the mission he appears in without fighting him. Killing him nets you some nice rewards, though.
Shockwave Stomp: Has the War Stomp ability.
Shout-Out: To the boss of the same name of Diablo (1997). It even drops the item "Wirt's Other Leg".

Bloodfeast

Small king no escape. Slay! Rend! Feast!

A massive abomination working for the Dreadlords that tried to stop the weakened Arthas from fleeing the Lordaeron Capital. It can use the Shockwave and Cripple spells.

Armored But Frail: Inverted. It has the same base armor of 2 as a normal abomination, but a whooping 3000 HP.
Giant Mook: Much bigger than a regular abomination.
Stone Wall: Despite its massive healthpool, it has the same attack stat as a regular abomination. Though it has the Shockwave spell for some area damage.

Sapphiron

A blue dragon that Arthas slew and then enslaved into becoming a Frost Wyrm upon his return to Northrend.

For information about his character see this page.

Crutch Character: He shows up in the first mission with Anub’arak, who is still low leveled. Finishing his sidequest makes the mission much easier, since he adds the power of a 12-14 food unit without having to spend any of that food. He does not return for the upcoming Arthas missions.
Draco Lich: Even more than Frost Wyrms, since he can actually cast Frost Nova and do some burst damage.
Giant Flyer: A behemoth, he is the largest flying unit in the campaigns.
King Mook: He is a unique, bigger and stronger Blue Dragon (when alive) and Frost Wyrm (as undead).
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike most unique campaign units, Sapphiron is affected by upgrades. Additionally, he gains much more armor (3 instead of 2) and damage from upgrades than most units.
One-Man Army: Sapphiron does massive damage in an area every attack (roughly 30-50% more than a normal Frost Wyrm), has impressive armor (it starts at 6 and goes up to 15 with upgrades, versus a normal Frost Wyrm which goes 1-7), Resistant Skin (so he can’t be targeted by spells like Polymorph), and 2750 health (which is around twice as much of a normal Frost Wyrm). He is the strongest non-hero unit the player can control in any of the RTS style maps, though due to his light armor type he can still fold easily to Anti-Air. Besides his armor type the only other thing stopping him from being The Juggernaut is not having Spell Immunity.
Optional Party Member: In “The Return to Northrend”, with overlap with Guest-Star Party Member, recruiting him is an optional quest, but he makes it quite a bit easier. Though not technically a hero, he is as strong as one and shares some of their immunities with Resistant Skin. Additionally, he appears in the opening cutscene of Arthas’ next mission, whether you actually went to kill him or not.
Readings Are Off the Scale: His living form is Level 15 in a campaign where heroes and units max out at Level 10.
Randomized Damage Attack: His damage spread starts around 70 and goes up to 130 as he gets upgraded, which gives a significant variety between his highest and lowest damage.

Night Elf Campaign Units

Shandris Feathermoon

Tyrande Whisperwind’s second in command in The Sentinels. She is effectively just a stronger and more durable Archer in terms of combat.

For information about her character see this page.

Back for the Finale: Shandris is playable in the first mission of the Night Elf campaign (in Reforged only, in the original it's just a normal Archer), becomes an NPC in the second mission, and returns playable in the final mission.
Bottomless Magazines: She wonders in one of her Stop Poking Me! quotes how is that she never runs out of arrows
Early Installment Character-Design Difference: A very unusual case since it happens in the same campaign. Shandris has the model of a normal Archer and when the mission starts and you control her, she is just a simple Archer unit. The very next mission she appears and looks like the Night Elven ranger with the hood. Reforged fixes this, so that Shandris has the correct model and is the correct unit from the first mission.
Palette Swap: Of the living Sylvanas Windrunner. She looks the same except she has the Night Elven skin tone.

Naisha

Maiev Shadowsong’s second in command in The Watchers. She is effectively just a stronger and more durable Huntress in combat. She also has infinite owls available for her Sentinel spell.

Crutch Character: More or less by design. Maiev is very weak early on in the campaign and Naisha is there to help her absorb damage in the micro-based missions and help fight the extremely powerful Naga troops. She is killed off in the third mission and Maiev gets the help of the level 10 Tyrande and Malfurion not long after.
King Mook: She’s a bit larger than your average huntress and has a bit more health (700, about 40 percent more) and significantly more damage (around 30 a hit, about 70 percent more) than one. She also has a better armor type (Heavy), so she isn't as vulnerable to ranged attacks. Also, her Sentinel Owl ability can be used repeatedly after a cooldown, unlike the other Huntresses' which are single use.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Shandris, serving the same story role to Maiev as Shandris to Tyrande, and having the same gimmick of being a stronger version of a basic unit.

Night Elf Runner

A messenger sent by Maiev to get the mainland to send reinforcements.

Healing Hands: Because they are meant to be as far away from battle as possible. They can use the Priest's healing ability in order to support her allies while they protect her.
Ironic Name: Despite her name and purpose being to deliver a message, the Runner is very slow, especially compared to the generally speedy units of the Night Elves.

Warden

Night Elf watchers responsible for the prisoners in the Barrow Deeps, encountered by Tyrande in her quest to free Illidan. Not to be confused with the Warden hero in The Frozen Throne.

The Artifact: Despite carrying a blowgun on their back, they never actually use it as they instead attack with throwing stars. This is because the blowgun was originally part of the scrapped Assassin unit's kit, where they'd use it to shoot a poison dart at a target, but this didn't carry over to the campaign Warden unit when the model was reused.
In the Hood: Fitting for what was originally meant to be an assassin, they wear a large hood that partially shadows their face.
Ornamental Weapon: They carry a blowgun on their back, but they don't use it in combat.
Stock Ninja Weaponry: Since they were originally assassins, they are essentially elven ninjas and used throwing stars to attack enemies in the original game.
Whip of Dominance: Though they use throwing stars in the original game, they had a whip in the original Assassin unit's concept art and their updated model in Reforged wields one seemingly made of vines, which fits their role as wardens and torturers in the Barrow Deeps.

Sentry

Melee troops for the Barrow Deeps Watchers, encountered by Tyrande in her quest to free Illidan. Reforged's version of the Terror of the Tides campaign also lets you train them.

Rings of Death: Like the Warden hero, the Sentries wield what appears to a large chakram, though unlike the Warden theirs has a gap in the ring.

Naga Units

A mostly antagonistic race of former Night Elves that appears in all four of The Frozen Throne campaigns (though only briefly, and unimportantly in The Founding of Durotar). They are aquatic in nature, able to build their structures on shallow water and all their units can cross deep water.

Developer's Foresight: Because they were intended to be playable at first, they have dedicated announcer lines for research, finishing buildings, being under attack, etc. These lines can be heard in a single mission, the last one of the Sentinels Campaign, where the player controls them.
Disc-One Nuke: Nagas have a very simple tech tree, which means that you can start training tier 2 and tier 3 units pretty much from the start and ignore the Mur'gul Reavers.
Fish People: Both Naga and their Mur’gul minions are this. This comes with the main quirk of being able to cross deep water.
Invisibility with Drawbacks: A few Naga Units (Snap Dragons, Myrmidons, Royal Guards) can learn to Submerge, which will allow them to turn invisible when standing on deep water, at the cost of being completely unable to do anything.
Master of All: Many of them have abilities lifted from other units, some of which are overpowered but balanced by being on a unit that is weak for its cost. Examples would be Slow Poison and Abolish Magic, which is balanced by being on the weak stat Dryad, is given to the relatively normal stat Snap Dragon and extremely overpowered stat Couatl respectively. Ensnare is given to the Raider, which is specialized towards Hit-and-Run Tactics and is poor for direct combat but also the Naga Myrmidon, which has the stats of an Abomination.
Purposely Overpowered: As Nagas do not appear as a faction outside of the campaign and map editor, they are not designed with game balance in mind. All of their units can cross water, they can build structures on the water, and their units are too powerful for their cost.

Mur'gul Slave

The Nagas' Worker Unit. Unlike the other Naga units, they have no notable stats or abilities. Their build style is “internal” (hides the worker) like Peons and Wisps, and they can carry 20 lumber like ghouls.

The Speechless: Their voice set is the same as all other Mur'guls, in that he is not capable of speaking and only makes basic guttural vocalizations. It's possible that it was intended to have a voice, since the some of the Naga announcer's building lines are a distinct, guttural voice that is not used for any other unit, while all the other announcer lines are spoken by a Naga Myrmidon.
Worker Unit: They are the Nagas' builders and resource gatherers.

Mur'gul Reaver

A basic warrior the Naga can produce from their starting structure, Temple of the Tides.

Overshadowed by Awesome: Reavers can be built out of the gate and are tied with Ghouls as the cheapest combat unit in the game, while having better stats than Ghouls. However, due to Naga not requiring any tech levels, the units produced from their other structures are so much better that Reavers aren't worth using.
Vanilla Unit: The Reaver is an unimpressive unit that doesn't have any abilities (passive or active) whatsoever, not even splash damage.
Zerg Rush: Reavers are as cheap as Ghouls and are produced from the Nagas' starting building.

Naga Myrmidon

"From the murky depths, I come."

Hulking snake men who wield giant spears. They are the rank and file of the Naga armies. They cost more than the basic warriors of other factions but have stats comparable to late-game units while being cheaper than the units in question.

Anti-Air: Myrmidons cannot target air units, but they can force them to the ground using Ensnare.
Degraded Boss: In a very similar way to the Abomination in the Reign of Chaos human campaign, a single Naga Myrmidon (two of them on Hard Mode) is the last opponent of the first mission of The Frozen Throne, but the very next mission it becomes just a normal troop that the enemies build.
Disc-One Nuke: Nagas have a very simple tech tree, with the ability to construct the building that produces Myrmidons out of the gate. Despite costing less than Knights or Druids of the Claw, the Myrmidons have higher HP, damage^note, and HP regeneration.
Elite Mooks: Despite being trainable right from the start, they are about as strong as a late-game unit.
Inescapable Net: The Myrmidon can use Ensnare to throw a net at an enemy that functions the same as the Raider's version. This gives the Myrmidon a huge amount of utility for a heavy combat unit.
Multiple Reference Pun: Myrmidons are subordinates who carry out orders without any hesitation and are typically unscrupulous. However, it is also applied here to a merman-like creature, so it can be read like a pun too.
Prongs of Poseidon: Myrmidons wield massive tridents.

Snap Dragon

Four-legged lizard creatures who act as the Nagas' ranged troops.

Anti-Air: Snap Dragons can attack ground and air targets.
Back for the Finale: After being absent in World of Warcraft for over a decade, they finally return as mobs in Nazjatar, as the naga are defeated for good.
Poisonous Person: Snap Dragons have the Dryads' Slow Poison, which causes their attacks to slow their targets' movement and attack speed while dealing a slow Damage Over Time effect.

Dragon Turtle

Giant turtles the Naga use as their siege units. They are much weaker than the Dragon Turtle Creeps but are still resilient and powerful units.

Anti-Structure: Dragon Turtles do insane damage against buildings, more than any other unit.
Attack Reflector: Their Spiked Shell passive reflects some of the damage they take back at the attacker.
Battering Ram: They take the close ranged approach to sieging and smash through buildings through raw power and tanky protection rather than long range. Though they aren't as much this as Siege Engines or Mountain Giants, since they have respectable range, it's just less than your average tower.
Damage Reduction: Their Hardened Skin ability reduces the damage of all attacks against them.
Disc-One Nuke: Nagas do not need to tech up like other factions to get access to new units, so they can produce their powerful building destroyers well before other factions get their siege units.
Extreme Omnivore: They can use Devour, letting them consume any unit, removing them from combat until Devour's Damage Over Time kills them, or the Dragon Turtle is killed.
Siege Engines: They are the Nagas' siege units. While they lack the absurd HP of their creep variant and the range of other factions' siege units, they have the highest damage against buildings of any unit while still being decent fighters if they come under attack. They are also one of the few siege units that is organic, instead of mechanical, so they regenerate HP naturally.

Naga Siren

"My song echoes from the deeps."

Female Naga that wields magic. Their unique ability is Parasite, which deals damage over time and spawns a small Mur’gul (called a Watery Minion) from their corpse. The rest of their abilities (Frost Armor and Cyclone) are lifted from other spellcasting units.

Blow You Away: They can cast Cyclone.
An Ice Person: Sirens can cast Frost Armor to enhance the durability of allies.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: They have four arms. Not that they use them for combat, since their basic attack is a magic projectile.
Spawn Broodling: Their Parasite spell infects an enemy with a long-duration damage over time effect. If the victim dies, the spell spawns a Watery Minion with timed life from their corpse.
Squishy Wizard: They can survive a bit more punishment than most spellcasters due to Frost Armor, but that's not saying much.
Support Party Member: Naga Sirens lack the raw damage of the Myrmidons, but they have a spell called Parasite. This can be set to autocast and causes a Damage Over Time effect that lasts a very long time. If it kills any enemy unit, it creates a free unit called a Watery Minion. They can also temporarily remove enemy units from combat with Cyclone and buff the armor of friendly units with Frost Armor.

Couatl

Winged snake creatures who act as the Nagas' flying units.

Anti-Magic: Couatls can cast Abolish Magic, causing their attacks to remove buffs and debuffs and deal extra damage to summoned units.
Glass Cannon: Couatls have decent HP, slightly lower than a Wind Rider (though the Nagas' fast HP regeneration gives it greater survivability), but very high damage, in-between that of a Wind Rider and a Gryphon Rider. All while being as fast as a Hippogryph Rider.
Put on a Bus: Unlike other naga units like snapdragons, couatls aren't featured in World of Warcraft, not even in their capital Nazjatar.
Zerg Rush: The biggest advantage the Couatl has over the flying units of other factions is that it is cheap and only takes up two food vs four taken up by the Wind Rider and Gryphon Rider. Only the Hippogryph and Gargoyle cost less and also take up two food. Both of them are dedicated Anti-Air units, so they lack the Couatl's flexibility.

Naga Royal Guard

"I come to you now, at the turn of the tide."

Elite Naga warriors who are so powerful the player never gets to build them even in the missions where they control Naga units. They have comparable stats to a Doom Guard, have versions of spells typically only found on heroes, and are fast and benefit from faction upgrades.

Boss in Mook's Clothing: Naga Royal Guards take everything dangerous about Doom Guards and put it into a package that is faster, has better armor, and benefits from armor and damage upgrades, on top of arguably having a better selection of spells, since the Royal Guards have more straightforward damage spells which include the ability to stun targets.
Elite Mooks: They are upgraded versions of the Myrmidons, though since the Myrmidons can be considered elite (being as strong as a late-game unit), then the Naga Royal Guard would be a Boss in Mook Clothing as it has abilities to rival heroes and high-level creeps.
An Ice Person: They can cast Frost Bolt, which deals damage and stuns an enemy with ice.
Infinity +1 Element: Royal Guards inflict Chaos damage, so their attacks deal full damage to all targets regardless of armor type.
Lightning Bruiser: Royal Guards have as many hit points as a Frost Wyrm, hit harder than the elite land units of other factions, and, unlike such units (aside from the Knight) they are fast.
Magic Knight: On top of their high stats, Royal Guards have an array of spells, two of which (Crushing Wave and Frostbolt) are offensive in nature.
Making a Splash: They can cast Crushing Wave, which sends out a wave of water over several units in front of them.
Master of All: Royal Guards have more HP than a Tauren, higher damage than a Mountain Giant, the armor of a Knight, can attack air units, and are fast.
My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Players do not get to build Naga Royal Guards in the missions where they control Naga units. The AI in the final Undead mission has no such restrictions.
Prongs of Poseidon: Like Myrmidons, they wield tridents.
Purposely Overpowered: Even compared to the Nagas' other units, the Royal Guard is massively overpowered, as it has everything one would want in a land unit and can cast spells that help it in combat. It is like the Doom Guard, only worse, since it benefits from the Nagas' armor and damage upgrades. Quite tellingly, when the player does control Nagas as a faction, they still cannot build Royal Guards, and are only given a limited number in a few missions.
Summon Magic: Royal Guards can cast Summon Sea Elemental, creating a unit that is slightly more powerful than a basic Water Elemental.
Superpowered Mooks: They are basically myrmidons but with hero-like stats and spells.

Naga Summoner

Extremely powerful Naga mages. They are permanently ethereal, like Spirit Walkers, so they cannot be attacked except by units with magical attack types and they take extra damage from spells. Unlike the rest of the Naga units, they cannot be built, and their function is mostly cinematic as they don't actually have any spells.

Achilles' Heel: They have a respectable 1080 health, and are ethereal, so they cannot be damaged by physical damage at all. Being ethereal however, they take extra from magical damage and there's plenty of ways to kill them; Mana Flare, Chimaeras, and Druids of the Talon (though not Maiev's spells for whatever reason). The most effective option, however, is Malfurion's Entangling Roots as it will kill a Naga Summoner in its duration. Malfurion can beat the mission with repeated suicide charges without ever having to destroy Illidan's base.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Not only do they not summon minions or anything like that, but they also don't have any spells at all ^note. In story they are some sort of Elite Mook version of Naga Sirens and four of them can use a powerful artifact to tear an entire continent apart.
Non-Indicative Name: Despite being called "Summoners", they don't summon anything. It would be more accurate to call them "Channelers".
Palette Swap: Of the Naga Siren, visually being the Royal Guard to the Siren's Myrmidon. They have the same base model, but they are green instead of greenish-blue. They are a deep blue instead in Reforged.
Time-Limit Boss: All four of the Summoners have to be killed within 30 minutes.
Unique Enemy: They only appear in "The Ruins of Dalaran". They are non-combatants and focused on Illidan's Eye of Sargeras spell to destroy Northrend. Killing all four of them is the mission objective.

Draenei Units

Appearing in Curse of the Blood Elves is a special Draenei race in Outland with distinct units from the default Draenei creep line.

Draenei Laborer

The Draeneis' Worker Unit.

Worker Unit: They act as resource gatherers and builders for the Draenei. They appear to exclusively harvest lumber, as the one Draenei base that's seen has no gold mine.

Draenei Stalker

An invisible Draenei warrior who relies on stealth to get in position to land his powerful attacks.

Glass Cannon: Stalkers are not especially durable, but they hit hard and are invisible when not attacking.
Force and Finesse: The Finesse to the Vindicator's Force. The Stalker is less durable, but hits harder and is invisible, so it requires more micromanagement on the player's end to reach a target but can deal greater damage than the Vindicator is used properly.
Stealth Expert: Stalkers are invisible until they attack an enemy.

Draenei Vindicator

The hardier Draenei warrior, who is armed for a frontal assault.

Force and Finesse: They are the Force to the Stalker's Finesse. The Stalker is a stealth unit that inflicts greater damage, while the Vindicator has a weaker attack but higher armor and HP.
Vanilla Unit: They have no abilities (not even the invisibility most of their brethren have), but they have pretty good stats.

Draenei Seer

A powerful Draenei spellcaster.

Healing Hands: Has the Healing Wave spell.
Support Party Member: He can heal with Healing Wave, debuff enemies with Slow, and increase the mana regeneration of your other spellcasters and heroes with Brilliance Aura.

Draenei Saboteur

A support warrior that's especially good at taking down buildings.

Anti-Structure: On top of dealing Siege damage, they have the Liquid Fire passive ability, which deals damage over time to buildings, prevents them from being repaired and greatly increase the time they take in training units.
Healing Hands: Has the Healing Wave spell.
Stealth Expert: Saboteurs are invisible until they attack an enemy.

Draenei Elite Assassin

A stealthy draenei warrior with a high damage output.

Critical Hit: They have a 20% chance of dealing twice their attack damage.
Glass Cannon: Like Stalkers, Elite Assassins aren't especially durable, but they can hit hard with Critical Hit and are invisible when not attacking.
Magic Knight: Downplayed. They're a melee unit with invisibility and one spell, Howl of Terror.
Stealth Expert: Elite Assassins are invisible until they attack an enemy.

Salamander

A ranged dinosaur creature that fights with the draenei. Appears to be based on the normal Salamander unit line. Visually is purple like the Salamander Vizier (unlike the more common red salamanders) but is much weaker.

Shock and Awe: They have a lightning attack that slows enemies.

Draenei Demolisher

A demolisher, like the orcs have, but used by the Draenei. Serves as their siege weaponry.

Art Evolution: In Reforged, the model looks more like the Draenei ballistas from Warlords of Draenor, instead of looking the same as the Orc Demolisher.

Neutral Campaign Units

Note: There are a huge number of Elite versions of normal creeps that are in the campaigns, most of them extremely minor. For simplicity this folder will only discuss the most notable of them.

Murloc Guardian and Murloc Seacultist

Exclusive to the Reign of Chaos demo's cut missions, they are elite Murloc cultists that serve the Sea Witch in the Underworld Minions. Both are ranged spellcasters with the spell Cripple. The Seacultist also has the ability Heal.

Support Party Member: They are not powerful damage dealers, but they are effective support casters.
Version-Exclusive Content: They only appear in the cut missions of the Reign of Chaos demo campaign. The missions are playable as the generic custom campaign in The Frozen Throne and are actually restored in Reforged.

Siege Golem

The anti-structure unit of the Underworld Minions that try to stop Thrall from escaping the island. It is a Rock Golem that can only exclusively attack buildings. Not to be confused with the Siege Golem creep, the ultimate creep of the War Golem line.

Achilles' Heel: Raiders. Their Siege attack deals extra damage to the Golems fortified armor and the Raiders can ensnare them before they get close to any buildings.
Anti-Structure: Their entire purpose is to charge through your troops and target your buildings. This makes them a huge threat in the Hold the Line mission they appear in.
Battering Ram: The Siege Golem deals Siege damage and can only attack buildings, so it will run around all units to try to attack them. Due to its very high damage, it can tear apart buildings with each strike. It does have Slam however, so it is still a threat to troops.
Boss in Mook's Clothing: Despite seeming like the weaker golems fought earlier in the campaign, the Siege Golem is so much more durable and dangerous than any of the Murloc troops that it feels like fighting a hero.
Herd-Hitting Attack: It has Slam, which causes it to deal damage and slow to land units in an area around it.
Lightning Bruiser: It moves and attacks quickly, while also being very durable. Thus, the best way to counter them is to ensnare them or use your units to block their pathing before they reach your buildings.
Nerf: In each of their appearances.
- Indirectly, in The Frozen Throne, as Watch Towers and Orc Burrows stopped having Fortified Armor and were changed to Heavy. This basically reduced the damage Siege Golems did to them by about 33% from the Reign of Chaos demo, though in general Towers were less durable against most normal troops.
- Reforged reduces their health from 800 to 640, making them less of a pain to kill.
No-Sell: It is immune to spells.
Unique Enemy: They only appear in the last mission of the Prologue Campaign.
Version-Exclusive Content: Just like the Murloc casters, the Siege Golem does not appear in vanilla Reign of Chaos and is only partially restored in The Frozen Throne. It becomes part of the campaign in Reforged.

Searinox

A black drake encountered in the second mission of the Reign of Chaos Human campaign. He is far weaker than a normal black dragon.

Acid Attack: Unlike all other Black Dragons, Searinox spits out an acid breath.
Optional Boss: He is the target of an optional quest, so fighting him is not required.
Randomized Damage Attack: His attacks deal between 25 and 100 damage a hit. He has a damage spread of 75, so each attack of his can tickle or burn.
Warm-Up Boss: He mostly exists as a sidequest early on to introduce the player to the concept of fighting air units (which Arthas cannot attack due to being a melee unit, but the Riflemen given to the player can).

The Guardian

An extremely powerful Revenant that guards Frostmourne in Northrend.

An Ice Person: His two spells are Frost Nova and Frost Armor, both ice themed.
Decapitated Army: All his minions die if he dies, so you can just aim for him to end the encounter as quickly as possible.
Disc-One Final Boss: He is the last obstacle before reaching Frostmourne, but the player still has to destroy Mal'Ganis afterwards.
King Mook: He is larger and stronger than Ice Revenants, which he has the same model as.
Good All Along: Despite seeming like an evil monster, the Guardian in his dying breath begs Arthas to turn back.
The Guardian: Turn away... before it's... too late.
Arthas: Still trying to protect the sword, are you?
The Guardian: No... trying to protect you... from it.
Hero Antagonist: He is ultimately this since he is not serving the Lich King and appears to be trying to stop his plans, though it's revealed as a twist.
Mini-Boss: His encounter is relatively straightforward, and he has a bit of health, but he is not a long or difficult fight.

Satyr Pyromancer

A Satyr that attacked Grom Hellscream on his way to the Well of Chaos.

Playing with Fire: As his names implies, he has the spells Firebolt and Rain of Fire.
Unique Enemy: There is only one Satyr Pyromancer in the entire game.

The Largest Panda Ever

A gigantic Panda found underground in the Barrow Dens.

Gameplay and Story Integration: It has no abilities except passive Spell Immunity and when defeated, it drops a Necklace of Spell Immunity, which implies it was spell immune because it was wearing the necklace.
Lethal Joke Character: Despite being extremely silly and a gag enemy, it is stronger than all other standard level 10 creeps.
Optional Boss: He is found as an Easter Egg and can be killed, but he drops a Necklace of Spell Immunity, an overpowered item that greatly helps in the final mission.

Flesh Golem

A campaign exclusive enemy, horrific experiments in Dalaran and Lordaeron. They are golems that are part Animated Armor and part flesh. They are not actually undead despite their appearance, and unlike most golems they don’t have spell immunity. They usually have Cripple and Shockwave.

Armored But Frail: Inverted. The Flesh Golem has a giant stack of health, but no defense at all and no Spell Immunity.
Art Evolution: In their reappearance in Reforged, they no longer look like the horned Armor/Flesh War Golems and bear more of a resemblance to the World of Warcraft Flesh Giants and Flesh Titans that are seen in Naxxramas.
Flesh Golem: Obviously. Though they are also part Animated Armor. Reforged makes them more of this trope by removing the Animated Armor part of them.
King Mook: The Flesh Golem is often fought with smaller, weaker Lesser Flesh Golems.
Readings Are Off the Scale: Flesh Golems are level 11, one greater than the normal cap of 10.
Recurring Boss: They are fought on 3 separate missions, as Mini-Boss encounters in “The Dungeons of Dalaran” and “Flight From Lordaeron”, and as an Optional Boss for Lord Garithos in “A New Power in Lordaeron”.
Stone Wall: Besides his large health pool, he deals pretty negligible damage for a high-level creep, dealing about 48 damage a hit, which is less than a Granite Golem or Infernal.
Slasher Smile: They have one of these permanently in both their model and icon.
Takes One to Kill One: They have a very unusual mix of Normal Attack type and Medium Armor meaning they deal extra damage to their own armor type. Only the Mountain Giant and Kobold Tunneler have the same combination. To make up for their extreme health pool, they also have no armor so Normal type attacks will deal a lot of damage to them and can kill them unexpectedly quickly.

Master of Pain and Mistress of Torment

Master of Pain and Mistress of Torment were the secondary leaders of Magtheridon's forces when Illidan arrived with his forces. They each hold half of a key to Magtheridon's main chambers in his Black Citadel.

Asskicking Leads to Leadership: As secondary leaders of Magtheridon's forces they are even stronger than the Blademasters, and are second only to Magtheridon himself, and not counting the bonus campaign, they are among the strongest non-hero units in the game.
Co-Dragons: They are the secondary leaders of Magtheridon's forces and must be killed to gain access to him.
Combo Platter Powers: Both of them have an absurd number of abilities that come from multiple existing units. The Master of Pain notably has Reincarnation, so he has to be killed twice in a row, and has multiple Area of Effect damage spells around him, having both War Stomp and Slam. The Mistress of Torment has more debuffs and ranged damage spells like Chain Lightning, Death Coil, and Carrion Swarm.
Flunky Boss: They are accompanied by other demon units.
Herd-Hitting Attack: They have a lot of skills that are area or chain based.
King Mook: They are stronger versions of a Doom Guard and a Queen of Suffering respectively.

Queen Nezar'Azret

A Nerubian Queen found and slain by Arthas and Anub'arak in Azjol-Nerub. She is noteworthy for being the only hard-mode exclusive opponent in all of the campaigns.

The Bus Came Back: She appears in World of Warcraft as an Undead Crypt Lord during the Culling of Stratholme, which takes place before she was killed in The Frozen Throne.
Elite Mook: She has 2350 health; more health than a dragon. She outputs slightly more damage than a normal Nerubian Queen.
Hard Mode Mooks: She only appears as an enemy in Hard difficulty. However, she doesn't drop any unique items.
Mini-Boss: Despite being exclusive to Hard Mode, she really is just a minor boss in the level as a whole. The boss of the level is still the Mountain King Baelgun and he is far more dangerous than her.

Forgotten One

A mysterious, lovecraftian monster fought by Arthas and Anub’arak in Azjol-Nerub. It appears to be leader of the Faceless Ones (N'raqi), and seems to be related to the Old Gods, which would come later.

Combat Tentacles: It can summon these, though its normal attack is a fireball.
Disc-One Final Boss: Despite its fearsome appearance and dramatic boss battle, it is not the last boss of the Azjol-Nerub missions. Instead, it’s a campaign exclusive creep Faceless One Annihilator (which is just a Faceless One Deathbringer with around 600 more health) in the next map.
Flunky Boss: It summons tentacles in its fight, and when the encounter starts, Faceless Ones begin to spawn from a cave behind the player too.
Healing Factor: It regenerates 10 health a second, not as much as an Ancient Hydra but still very quick.
Marathon Boss: On Hard mode it has 8000 health. Due to its Healing Factor, this means the battle takes quite a bit of time. On normal mode, it only has 4000, which is not negligible but is not quite this trope.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: The Forgotten One is a building but has Heavy armor instead of fortified. It is organic instead of mechanical as well, so it can be damaged by Locust Swarm.
No-Sell: It has spell immunity.
Playing with Fire: Its default projectile is a fireball. It also has the abilities Firebolt and Flame Strike.
Readings Are Off the Scale: It is level 15 while your heroes can only reach level 10.
Stationary Boss: The only one in the game. It cannot move because it is a building after all. Additionally, the minions it summons (tentacles) are also stationary.

Stonemaul Ogre

Special one-headed Ogre Warriors that appear in The Founding of Durotar, working as the main melee unit of the Stonemaul Clan, and is used by the player and the computer to fight the forces of Kul'Tiras. They have more health and damage than a Grunt, but less than a Tauren.

Inescapable Net: They have the Ensnare ability, which gives them the option to deal with air units while being a better frontline unit than a Raider.
Multiple Head Case: An aversion. Stonemaul Ogres have one head, while all of the standard creep Ogres have two heads.
Overshadowed by Awesome: At a glance, the Stonemaul Ogre restores the badass status Ogres had in the past and would be a possibly valuable part of an Orc techtree. However, they are in The Founding of Durotar, which is not only not an RTS, but also a campaign where each hero is immensely overpowered. Even as part of a techtree, they are still much weaker frontline units than Tauren.

Kor'gall

The tyrannical leader of the Stonemaul Clan in the Dustwallow Marsh. Rexxar joins the clan and challenges him to leadership in order to force the clan to join the fight against Kul'Tiras. Notable for having the only true Boss Battle in any of the campaigns.

Boss Battle: Kor'gall is the only encounter in all of the campaigns that can be considered a traditional boss battle.
- Most of the other "bosses" are just a Hero Unit joining an attack wave, or a very tough Elite Mook (that can be freely disengaged with). Kor'gall is a Duel Boss, fought in an arena where the player can't flee and that has dynamic rune spawning. He himself has 8 active abilities ^note and 2 passive ones ^note, which is far more than the average 4 that heroes have.
- Also, unlike all other opponents in The Founding of Durotar, where if you die, you will quickly respawn at the nearest Resurrection Stone, losing to Kor'gall will force the player to start the encounter over. He even has a cutscene where he taunts you about being too weak and that you should train to challenge him again. They still have infinite tries and no penalties for failing, but his encounter cannot be beaten just by brute force.
Duel Boss: The boss battle with Kor'gall is fought only with Rexxar, though both can summon beasts (and in the case of Kor'gall, wards), and Rexxar is not allowed to use items. There are also neutral Thunder Lizards that will be unleashed to attack both sides.
Damage-Increasing Debuff: He has Faerie Fire, which greatly increases the damage that his target takes.
Heal Thyself: He has Rejuvenation to recover health, and he also has Healing Wards, which heals far greater (due to its percentage-based healing).
Puzzle Boss: Without all their fancy items, the player will get demolished if they charge into Kor'gall with their summons and call it a day. The fight is greatly focused on smartly engaging and disengaging.
Summon Magic: He can summon organic looking Dire and Elder wolves.
Trap Master: He can summon damaging Serpent Wards, AOE stunning Stasis Traps, and the supportive Healing Ward. This all keeps the player moving so they don't stay in one place during the fight.

Eldritch Deathlord

An optional opponent in the main Act II map of The Founding of Durotar. A giant Death Revenant, he has the honor of being the most powerful enemy in any of the campaigns.

Bragging Rights Reward: It drops the Shield of the Deathlord, an item that grants armor, some health and mana, and permanent Immolation.
Made of Iron: He has an armor value of 120, much more than any other enemy. This gives him 88% resistance to incoming damage. Only Divine Armor beings reduce more (95% for non-chaos attacks).
Marathon Boss: The Eldritch Deathlord has 10000 (14000 on Hard) health, 120 armor (which reduces all damage to Scratch Damage) and has access to Rejuvenation (heals him over time) and passive Evasion (15% of attacks will miss), which are ideal for dragging out the length of the battle to several minutes long—an eternity in a RTS game.
Readings Are Off the Scale: It is level 20 in a campaign where heroes can only reach level 15. The stage he's fought, your heroes can only reach level 12.
Shock and Awe: He can cast Chain Lightning, and his minions are Lightning Revenants.
Super Boss: He is quite a bit stronger than Admiral Proudmoore but defeating him is not necessary to beat the campaign. He is the hardest of the campaign's single enemy challenges, only rivalled by some of the Outland Arena challenges.

Talnivarr the Sleeper, Destroyer Zardikar, and Sinstralis of the Pain

A set of Optional Boss encounters in The Founding of Durotar. Talnivarr the Sleeper is a Dreadlord (and thus a hero), while Destroyer Zardikar and Sinstralis of the Pain are a Doom Guard and Queen of Suffering respectively and are units. Though they start easy, they gradually reach the difficulty of a Super Boss encounter.

See their folder on this page, which describes their encounter(s) as a whole.

Characters / Warcraft 3 Units

Edit Locked

Default Playable Races

Peasant / Militia

Footman

Rifleman

Knight

Priest

Sorceress

Mortar Team

Gyrocopter / Flying Machine

Steam Tank / Siege Engine

Gryphon Rider

Water Elemental

Spell Breaker

Dragonhawk Rider

Phoenix

Peon

Grunt

Troll Headhunter / Berserker

Catapult / Demolisher

Raider

Kodo Beast

Wyvern / Wind Rider

Shaman

Troll Witch Doctor

Tauren

Spirit Wolf / Dire Wolf / Shadow Wolf

Troll Batrider

Spirit Walker

Acolyte

Ghoul

Crypt Fiend

Gargoyle

Shade

Necromancer

Skeleton Warrior and Skeletal Mage

Banshee

Meat Wagon

Abomination

Frost Wyrm

Infernal

Obsidian Statue

Destroyer

Carrion Beetle

Wisp

Archer

Huntress

Ballista / Glaive Thrower

Dryad

Druid of the Claw

Hippogryph

Hippogryph Rider

Druid of the Talon

Chimaera

Treant

Ancients

Mountain Giant

Faerie Dragon

Avatar of Vengeance

Spirit of Vengeance

Neutral Units and Creeps

Goblin Sappers

Goblin Zeppelin

Goblin Shredder

Transport Ship

Arachnathid

Bandits

Blue Dragonspawn

Centaurs

Corrupted Treants

Dragon

Draenei

Furbolgs/Polar Furbolgs

Ghosts

Gnolls

Golems

Harpies

Heretics

Hydras