That said, they are slower than a sleepy Hutt, cost well over 600 food and nova crystals, and require two open population slots to produce. They punish buildings (including outranging most fortress and anti air) and absolutely devastate mech and infantry formations.
Air Cruisers are airborne artillery with long attack range, gargantuan power, and a large amount of hit points and shields. Melee attacks, however, will quickly take them down. Pummels, at least, are well-defended against ranged attacks and can rip through fortified buildings very quickly - especially if the other side doesn't have the Rotation Bearings upgrade, ensuring that turrets can't defend themselves. Sometimes the case with the "pummel", a sci-fi incarnation of the battering ram of old - in a game with Imperial walkers, heavy artillery and bombers. The Grenade Trooper is otherwise extremely fragile and doesn't do a great deal of damage. In practice, though, she is mostly useless, and is most effective against shields and mechanized units, which don't come until Tech Level 3. The "grenade trooper", who carries a huge mortar that lobs thermal detonators at the enemy. Ascended Extra: The Wookiees, despite not appearing in the movies as a faction (At least not until Revenge of the Sith), have a total of two campaigns of their own in the game, and one of them happens to be the Basic Training campaign. Their pathfinding and formation skills are also fairly dubious: ordering a group of units to attack a target only to watch the closest ones move away from it (to form up with the rear-most units, which the AI isn't very good at either) can be especially frustrating. The AI will frequently throw units at you one by one instead of mustering a proper attack force, units attacking buildings will keep doing so even while being shot to pieces by your troops. Artificial Stupidity: the AI is slightly better than in Age of Empires II in some departments, but still leaves a lot to be desired. You can even get Darth Vader versus Anakin Skywalker. Anachronism Stew: Playing in Standard mode you can have a battle between the Empire and the Republic despite the fact that they are the same civilization at different points in history. Agri World: In the Darth Vader campaign, several missions take place on the agri-world of Reytha. Without proper escort, they have no answer for melee units.
Assault mechs and artillery can dish out long range punishment, but have a minimum firing range in which they can aim. note And speaking of bombers, they also get bonus damage against turrets - including, strangely enough, Anti-air turrets. Naturally, power cores have low HP and bombers get bonus damage against them. Taking out the power cores will shut down shields and cripple most buildings.