Thrall/1.03.25

Thralls are basic builders.

They are cheap but have a poor build skill and combat. They are accessible by all the "primitive" factions, plus the Dark Elves and the Undead.

=Factions=

Barbarians
The Thrall serves as the basic builder of the Barbarians.

Benefits from the Training, Eagle Eye, Magical Tattoos, and Bloodlust researches.

Minotaurs
The Thrall serves as the basic builder of the Minotaurs.

Benefits from the Training, and Eagle Eye researches.

Dark Elves
The Dark Elves can instantly recruit 10 Thralls for 250 Gold. While they can be used to build they are inferior to the Wisp so they are best used to fill mines. This aid Dark Elves in overcoming the limitation that their basic builders can't fill mines, and the lack of economic upgrades. Like all Elven races, income from mine fillers is halved but it is still better than none. However, know that Dark Elven Sorcerors can summons Zombies as well to fill in mines, but only a few at a time (typically 1-2). It appears that the Slave horde research is thus only a mean to increase faster the resource production rate at the cost of 200 Gold per mine (plus the initial research cost).

But slaves may have another use. If Sacrifice has been researched they can be sacrificed for a chance to summon a Daemon, and as far as total resources are regarded (and gold is plenty), they are cheaper for this purpose than the other cheapest, eligible unit, Dark Infantry. Another difference is that unit production is instant and thus (provided gold is plenty), several tries may be made in case of base defence emergency.

Benefits from the Black Ward research.

Undead
The Undead can instantly recruit 10 Thralls for 250 Gold. Since they have better speed then Zombies they can replace them to build since they will reach the destination faster. They can be used as mine fillers too, but are not available until late in the game, when Zombies can be summoned for free.

They can also be sacrificed en masse for their bones by pressing Crtl+D while they are selected. This will kill all of them simultaneously and their corpses would soon turn into a pile bones within a few seconds. With a whole field of bones at your disposal you can now raise a horde of skeletons in an instant by casting the "Call the Dead" spell from the center of the bone field or with the assistance of an evenly dispersed squad of liches if you've sacrificed more than one batch of thralls.

This is a good tactic if the enemies don't provide enough bones themselves, since morphing skeletons to better units costs only either Metal or Crystals and thus it does not compete with the Gold resource which you will be using to summon more thralls to sacrifice. This process of making your army has an added bonus of being quicker, takes up less map space and is less costly overall than building a whole bunch of Gravestones but with the downside of being only available mid-game since the Cage is a Tier 3 building and that you have enough mines and stockpiled resources to do it. Plus it is heavy in micromanagement compared to just letting your Gravestones auto-produce skeletons for you.

Benefits from the Weaponsmith and Dark Mithril researches.

Quotes

 * Ready: "I serve only you, Master."
 * Select: "Ma... Master?" "Don't... Don't hurt me." "No, Master, no!"
 * Order: "As you wish." "Yes Master." "I'm so tired."
 * Deathblow: "I... I... I hit him!"
 * Can't build: "Master... It is too hard."
 * Build complete: "Please, let me rest."

Trivia

 * Thralls were slaves or serfs in Scandinavian lands.