Revision 1

The Harbinger is the Grell durable ranged creature, a Tier 2 unit with 400 health and 1 armour that spits corrosive acid at range 5.5 for double damage against Heavy armour. It also carries Eruption, a delayed area spell the unit pays for out of its own health rather than from any resource. The official faction page names it, alongside the Reaver, as one of the two evolutions that define the faction.

Figures below describe the September 2026 Early Access build, the one carrying the identifier ZS.c36778, and they move with the weekly patch cadence. Roughly half the versus roster had a stat touched in the fortnight before that build was captured, so treat every number here as dated rather than permanent.

Stat Block

Weapons

Abilities

Upgrades

Conversion Costs

Infuse is the Grell conversion mechanic, paid out of the same top bar power pool as the Legion Reanimate and the Xol Replicate. It permanently raises a friendly unit's health, damage and regeneration for the rest of that unit's life. Since the balance pass of August 11, 2026 the bonus is +45%, down from +50%, and the cost multiplier rose from 0.045 to 0.05 so that it matches the Protectorate shield and the Legion Reanimate.

The Harbinger is eligible for all three conversions at an identical 6.875 power each. Infuse is unusually valuable here because Eruption is paid in the unit's own health: +45% health is directly +45% more Eruptions, on top of the damage and regeneration the conversion also grants.

Role

The Harbinger is the Grell answer to armour. Twenty four damage a shot is modest, but +100% against Heavy makes it 48 into precisely the units a Grell army otherwise struggles with, and 400 health behind Heavy armour of its own means the Harbinger can stand in the line while it does it. Twelve damage per second is low enough that a Harbinger group is a sustained investment rather than a burst threat.

Eruption is what makes the unit worth its four supply. A hundred and twenty five damage in a delayed area at range 15, which is nearly three times the unit's own attack range, lets a Harbinger open a fight from outside it or punish a siege position it cannot reach. The cost is the interesting part: it is paid in the Harbinger's own health, not from the top bar pool, so a player casting repeatedly is spending the unit. Coagulated Membrane halves that to 50 health and is effectively a doubling of how many Eruptions an army can afford.

Thermal Carapace triples the armour value from 1 to 3, which against fast weak attacks is a much larger change than it sounds: the flat reduction rule described in Units takes 3 off every hit with a floor of 1, so a Harbinger with Thermal Carapace is close to immune to swarm chip damage.

Faction Context

Harbingers come from the Incubator, the Grell middle tier production structure, with first tier research at the Synapse Canopy and second tier at the Elderwomb. That places them on the same path as Keepers and Threshers and makes the Incubator the structure that turns a Grell opening into an army that can hold ground.

The studio has given the unit specific attention through development. It received a dedicated animation pass before launch, and on August 19, 2026 it was one of twenty two units and structures moved onto the newer animation system already used by Commandos and Stingers, alongside the Skrell and the Weaver from this roster. The studio reported large performance gains when many of them are on screen at once.

Tier and Armour Interactions

The Harbinger carries Heavy armour with an armour value of 1, rising to 3 with Thermal Carapace. Heavy is the category built to absorb damage, and the armour value matters more here than on any other Grell unit except the Reaver: three armour against ten attacks of four damage cuts 40 damage down to 10, while against one 40 damage hit it saves 3. A Harbinger is therefore strongest against many weak attackers and weakest against single heavy hits.

Its own bonus is the mirror image: +100% against Heavy armour, which is the only anti armour bonus in the Grell ground roster. Against Light, Medium, Building, Hero and None the Corrosive Spit does its flat 24. Two Harbingers shooting at each other is a perfectly symmetrical illustration of the whole bonus system.

Counters

Strong Against

Weak To

Balance History

• August 19, 2026: the Harbinger was one of twenty two units and structures moved onto the newer animation system, a performance change with no stat effect.

• August 28, 2026: the flux cost of the second tier Harbinger upgrades, Hemal Vents and Coagulated Membrane, was reduced from 200 to 125.

• August 28, 2026: the Eruption hotkey changed.

Notes

• The roster record for this unit is COMPLETE.

• The current data carries two different damage figures for Eruption: the ability text says 125 damage and a separate numeric field reads 150. The ability text is the figure reproduced above, because it is the one the game itself shows a player.

• The Protectorate fields a unit whose name begins with the same letter and which occupies a broadly similar tier. The two are unrelated and share no mechanics; the Harbinger is a Grell creature produced by the Incubator.

• Per unit numbers are drawn from a community maintained entity catalogue that the studio links from each of its own faction pages. It is the only place the full stat block is published, and it is not a studio document, so the figures are best read as careful community documentation of a build rather than as an official specification. Dated balance notes, by contrast, come straight from the studio patch posts.