Harpy and Harpy Hag

Dungeon creatures
Level 1
Troglodyte
Infernal Troglodyte
Level 2
Harpy
Harpy Hag
Level 3
Beholder
Evil Eye
Level 4
Medusa
Medusa Queen
Level 5
Minotaur
Minotaur King
Level 6
Manticore
Scorpicore
Level 7
Red Dragon
Black Dragon
Towns

Statistics
Harpy
Cost per troop  130
	Attack 6 Defense 5 Damage 1–4 Health 14 Speed 6 Movement Flying Size 1 Growth 8 AI Value 154
Special abilities:
• Strike and return
Harpy Hag
Cost per troop  170
	Attack 6 Defense 6 Damage 1–4 Health 14 Speed 9 Movement Flying Size 1 Growth 8 AI Value 238
Special abilities:
• Strike and return • No enemy retaliation
Portraits

Harpies and Harpy Hags are level 2 creatures of Dungeon. They are recruited from the Harpy Loft.

"Harpies - half-women/half-vulture in appearance - have a swooping attack that returns them to the hex they started from. Harpy hags attack with such violence their attacks cannot be countered." ^{RoE manual}

Special Ability: Strike and Return

Both harpies and harpy hags have a special ability to strike and return, which means that they fly next to their target, attack and return to their original hex. Harpies also receive retaliation before returning to the original hex, but Harpy Hags receive no enemy retaliation from their attack.

Dendroids have a special ability of binding, which works in an exceptional way to harpies when dendroids retaliate. After the retaliation, harpies return to their original hex as usual, and are bound after the return. This enables the dendroid stack to move or die without lapsing the entanglement causing the harpies to be bound down forever if not attacked or dispelled.

Heroes with a specialty

• Lorelei the Overlord has harpies as a specialty, which increases the attack and defense skills of any harpies or harpy hags for each level attained after 2nd level and gives them a speed bonus of 1.

Horn of the Abyss

    Harpies and Harpy Hags can choose not to return to the original hex.

Official Renders

• 

User commentary

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Harpies' raw stats are among average of the non-upgraded level 2 units apart from speed, in which they are second only to Air Elementals and in par with Stone Gargoyles and Wolf Riders. As their attacks can be retaliated, try to concentrate attacks on units, which have already used their retaliation. This can be a difficult task with Dungeon troops, as Minotaurs and Manticores are the following faster in-faction units. In Horn of the Abyss, avoid using strike and stay, as they are rather fragile (and somewhat expensive) units, unless you aim to distract weaker ranged units or ranged units with melee penalty, such as Master Gremlins. Harpy Hags gain only +1 defence, but also a very good boost of +3 in their speed and no enemy retaliation on upgrade, making them the only unretaliatable level 2 unit. They would also become the fastest level 2 units together with Obsidian Gargoyles. Harpy Hags' attack and defence stats remain below average when considering all level 2 units, but on the other hand their speed combined with strike and return and no enemy retaliation can make them very useful and devastating unit. With proper usage, Harpy Hags can be interpreted as an additional ranged unit for Dungeon. They remain fragile even after the upgrade, so consider carefully on using strike and stay, when playing Horn of the Abyss. Tactics can be an useful secondary skill to position Harpies better prior combat to gain more opportunities to strike. Haste and combat speed-increasing artifacts can also bring useful mobility for Harpy Hags. As both units have a wide damage range between 1-4, Bless would also be a very useful spell to cast on them (fortunately, Dungeon is the only evil town to have Bless). On the contrary, Slow can cripple Harpies and make them more easier to approach, while Curse reduces their damage to very low. Fire Shield would also punish Harpy Hags through their no enemy retaliation ability. AI tends to prioritize them as top targets when attacking other towns. To cut losses, avoid bringing Harpies in attacking sieges, if your hero can't cast Advanced Resurrection, does not have strong enough Tactics or does not possess strong enough Haste or combat speed boosts. A small stack of Harpy Hags (about 30+) can take down some of the creature banks without any losses. Speed 5 (or below) guards (Dwarven Treasury, Derelict Ship, etc.) - simply kite the enemies around the battlefield. They can never reach both ends of the battlefield anyway. Speed 6 guards (Experimental Shop, Red Tower, Griffin Conservatory) - Divert the guards into the centre by using 1- and 2- stacks of Harpy Hags, then use about 7-8 harpy hags as bait while about 25 harpy hags are used to attack with strike-and-return from the corner opposite to the side of the battlefield the 'bait' is moving near. (This requires +1 speed from either Lorelei, native terrain or a speed artifact). Alternatively, (particularly useful against flying speed 6 guards) try to group all enemies into the first 3 rows of the battlefield (so that they may not reach the bottom row). Then, position both powerstack and 'bait' opposite to the fire elementals, in the safe spots. Use the bait to relocate the bait into one side of the battlefield, while the powerstack attacks from the other. Speed 7 guards (Red Tower on Highlands or Griffin Conservatory on Grass) - a stack of 'meat' (any unit that can withstand at least 1 attack of the Fire Elemental / Griffin stack) is necessary. Use the meat to divert Fire Elementals towards 1st unit of your army. Hide the 'bait' and the powerstack near the top corner, while surrounding them with two 2-stacks and two 1-stacks. Lure all elementals within the top two rows of the battlefield (so that they may not reach the bottom row). Then proceed as for the Speed 6 guards. Always check banks with other heroes - if there's an upstack, it can ruin your game!

See also:

• List of creatures

• Comparison of Level 2 Creatures