Punisher
The Punisher is a crawling Profane siege engine -- slow mortar folds that outrange towers, plus an independent rack of pitch missiles that swats aircraft on its own.
Punisher
The Punisher is the Profane province’s siege engine: a crawling slab of tar-board that lobs slow, heavy mortar folds further than any tower can answer. Ponderous, brutal — at 2.8 speed it is the slowest thing the Profane field, and it does not care, because nothing it wants to kill can reach it first.
Its signature is the second weapon. Bolted atop the mortar is an independent anti-air rack of pitch missiles that tracks and fires on its own — the Punisher keeps shelling a wall while the rack swats the Plane diving on it, neither weapon waiting on the other. The mortar throws 48 damage out to 7 squares (beyond every tower’s reach); the rack stings aircraft for 18 a missile at a brisk cadence. Between them, the usual siege-engine counters get thin: towers can’t outrange it and bombers can’t freely dive it.
Folded at a Prototype Plant, the Punisher is the Profane sibling of the Pious Pulverizer — the same tier, the same scale of investment, opposite philosophy. The Pulverizer must reach you; the Punisher never intends to.
Strategy
The Punisher wins sieges by standing still in the right place. Park it at the edge of its 7-square reach and dismantle Parapets, Plasma coils and production buildings while the defender chooses between sallying out or watching. Its mortar’s languid 3.2-second cycle means it is poor against anything that moves — fast raiders that close the gap will carve up a lone engine, AA rack or not. Escort it with Piercers to catch runners, a Patcher to undo chip damage, and let its own missiles handle the sky. In engine-versus-engine matchups, remember the asymmetry: a Punisher shells a Pulverizer for free until it arrives, but loses the brawl the moment it does.