Blizzard released non-silhouette images for some of the new HOTS units.

I am hyper stoked about the battle hellion. Terran needs more transforming units they look so cool.

heres toss btw. i'm kinda worried about the replicant, seems too crazy that they could just make their own version of any unit.

I was kind of hoping for an early zerg AA unit. But these all seem pretty cool.

@adoggz: Yeah, the replicant could be very powerful if you clone enemy spell casters. Imagine cloning an enemy ghost unit then hitting the enemy ghosts with EMP. Protoss players complain about ghosts a lot but this unit might be good counter.

Seems pretty cool but as I watch competitive SC2 (I don't have the APM to actually play well enough) I wonder if the pros will use them, or if they will be kinda obscure like the Reaper or completely snubbed like the Carrier and Mothership.

I can't wait to see these in action.

• Warhound makes me thing the Thor is being removed because of the overlap with the Thor's anti-air attack.
• Hellion transformation seems to be like they want to remove the ability for hellions to just run in, blow up workers, and get out. I imagine it will come with a nerf to the pre-transformation damage.

• No idea for the shedder. SEems like a walking bunker.
• Viper looks like a replacement for the Overseer, a unit that blizzard has said they don't like.
• Swarm Host looks like a land broodlord mixed with a lurker.

• Replicant looks like a replacement for the Dark Archon 's Mind control ability from BW.
• Oracle looks like the god damn harass unit we have needed FOREVER.
• Tempest: A (hopefully) good version of the Carrier. Looks like the carrier is getting removed.

Edit: Taken from a TL thread(From IPL Caster AskJoshy)

• Terran: aoe spine crawler, transforming factory unit, Goliath substitute online
• Zerg: burrow moveable blank, reverse dark swarm, detection changes
• Protoss: mineral shields, new nexus defensive ability, and............ Cloning?
• The aoe spine crawler is a Shredder. It costs 150/150 and comes from the factory. It does nothing in its mobile form, but when you plant it in the ground making it stationary, it fires a quick aoe pulse in a visible, kind of large radius. The hitch is, if friendly units are standing near it, it won't fire the pulse. It has to be alone. Good for map control, and blocking expansions maybe.
• The transforming unit is the hellion. I only got to see it a little but it basically just flips into a firebat sort of thing and fires in a different pattern, more like a cone than a line. It's slower in its firebat form, as it's walking around.
• Goliath substitute is the Warhound, also from the factory. Shoots rockets at air kind of like a thor, but no/weaker splash and actually a really weak base attack. Its ground to ground attack looks like it's firing a tazer at its enemy. Decently quick fire rate, good for support I think, not viable to mass them.
• Burrow moveable banelings. That is all.
• Reverse dark swarm is just disruption web from the corsair, you guys were right. It's fired from the new "Viper" unit. This unit can also cast a spell to make any unit a detector. Overseers are out of the game. Viper's last spell is 100 energy (out of 200) and it pulls any unit from range to itself, like Scorpion's "Get over here!" or a chameleon tongue. I did it on an ultralisk and laughed.
• Protoss mineral shields come from a new flying raider unit. It coats enemy minerals in little white bubbles/shields that must be attacked down or time expired. My SCVs freaked out when Artosis did it to me, so my marines came and cleaned up the shield things.
• The new nexus defensive ability seems to be decent for super early game, not much else. Basically you can cast it on any of your structures and it gives it a weak attack. Artosis built a pylon in my mineral line and cast the new spell on it. My SCVs killed it and it only managed to take one SCV to 5 health. Not sure if this will be changed.
• Cloning? Looks like another unit, the replicant, can also transform itself like a shapeshifter into an enemy unit that it gets in melee range with. Artosis cloned my shredder, warhound, and an SCV and began building a command center with it.
• There's more stuff in the demo, but I only got to play one round and observe the Zerg stuff after my session was over.
• OH and the destructible rocks are actually a new thing. There are rocks that you can attack to CLOSE paths called collapsible rocks. This really confused me at first, I thought it was a bug, but it's a defensive measure you can choose to use.

It looks like the carrier and mothership are removed from the game: http://twitter.com/#!/djtyrant/status/127426488495648768/photo/1/large

and here: http://p.twimg.com/AcS9CN1CAAA3mn5.jpg

• Mass recall on Nexus in HOTS!!!!!
• Burrowed banelings can MOVE. Possibly an upgrade!
• Carriers Are Gone!
• No more Overseer.
• Hydra speed increased.
• Viper will permanently grant detection for energy. Lair tech. Grant detection is the cheapest spell.
• Swarm lord spits out broodling-looking things that have 16 attack damage and .87 attack speed.
• New Nexus Spell Picture Added!
• Mothership Gone to!

More stuff from the TL thread.

• Burrowed banelings can MOVE. Possibly an upgrade!

Transformer Hellions are out of this world awesome. 

Preview trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG_3R9BoVvg

@Cataphract1014 said:

• OH and the destructible rocks are actually a new thing. There are rocks that you can attack to CLOSE paths called collapsible rocks. This really confused me at first, I thought it was a bug, but it's a defensive measure you can choose to use.

MORE ROCKS? YES!

More stuff from PlayXP(Korean site) Probably some repeats. Bolded ones I think are good!

• Oracle can warp buildings away to stop attacks on your own structures, or stop research for enemy structures
• Oracle can see research or production of enemy structures
• Replicant can transform into non massive units
• Mass recall now available on Nexus
• Recalled units are unable to move for a few seconds
• Warhound is good at killing siege tanks, but has a short range
• You can only have ONE THOR ON THE FIELD AT A TIME, but it becomes BIG AGAIN LIKE IN ALPHA/BETA
• Thor attack and health increased
• Instead of air attack, Thor gets a massive bombardment skill
• Bombardment requires a skill similar to siege mode, this requires a fusioncore and an armory
• Battle Hellion has higher health and shorter range
• Ghost cloak changed and now spends a specific amount of energy, lasting for a certain period of time
• Ghost cloak is no longer an on/off skill
• Battlecruiser gets a cooldown skill called "limit reactor"(?) that boosts movement speed
• Reaper loses d8 charge attack
• Reaper gains a HP recovery skill
• Viper inserts parasite into friendly units to make them detectors
• Corruptor loses corrupt and gets a new skill called "absorb"(?) that damages enemy structures and turns them into resources
• Banelings can move burrowed
• Hydralisks gain a speed upgrade
• No more overseers

The new Protoss spellcasters seem really gimmicky.

Holy shit they're not pulling punches with these changes are they? Seems like a whole new game.

yeh, they are definitely making protoss the gimmicky race,

you'll probably see a lot of various kinds of cheeses out of protoss once HOTS is released, blizzard is really leaning on that line of thought that brought us Force Fields and Hallucination.

hopefully Blizzard can balance it out well enough that top protoss players are considered gimmicky, but instead are considered like a starcraft Houdini

@Cataphract1014 said:

More stuff from PlayXP(Korean site) Probably some repeats. Bolded ones I think are good!

• Ghost cloak changed and now spends a specific amount of energy, lasting for a certain period of time
• Ghost cloak is no longer an on/off skill

Whaaaaaaat? Please convince me that that is good...this pains me. :(

@mandude said:

@Cataphract1014 said:

More stuff from PlayXP(Korean site) Probably some repeats. Bolded ones I think are good!

• Ghost cloak changed and now spends a specific amount of energy, lasting for a certain period of time
• Ghost cloak is no longer an on/off skill

Whaaaaaaat? Please convince me that that is good...this pains me. :(

I'm Protoss ^_^

Jerk. :(

@Cataphract1014: Buildings warped out by the Oracle also eliminate that building from their opponent's tech tree for the duration. Warp out a Spire, can't build Mutalisks. It's going to be fucking OP against Zerg.

Seems underwhelming. :(

I could make comments about these units, but I'm not going to bother. The HotS beta will change so many of these units they'd be unrecognizeable from what we're seeing here.

I'm excited though, it looks like they're adding more spellcasters and skill-based units, making the game more interesting to watch and play.

This all seems incredible. While it's less than a month until Skyrim, which I fully expect to be my GOTY, I am far more excited for this than Skyrim. I only wish all the changes were presented better. I mean, I'm not opposed to reading big detailed lists people compile, it'd just be nice if Blizzard had a great big list I could read with visual aids.

Forget this, who saw the gsl grand finals?

@TheMasterDS said:

This all seems incredible. While it's less than a month until Skyrim, which I fully expect to be my GOTY, I am far more excited for this than Skyrim. I only wish all the changes were presented better. I mean, I'm not opposed to reading big detailed lists people compile, it'd just be nice if Blizzard had a great big list I could read with visual aids.

Reddit has it.

HoW seems to have a lot of differences from WoL. I can´t wait to see the pros playing.

@Spectreman: I imagine it may take a while for the pro scene to migrate from WoL to Heart. They're going to want to make sure things are reasonably well balanced first, and that may take some time.

It´s going to be confuse. The pros wanne be training with the new units. The tournaments will be underwhelming if use WoL, because all the attention, new tatics etc are with HoW, even in beta.

@RYNO9881 said:

Forget this, who saw the gsl grand finals?

SO GOOD

The more discussion I read about the Oracle and Replicant, the less I can see them actually making it into the final game, especially the Replicant. The Oracle will replace the carrier as the unit Protoss has that is absolutely useless except in certain situations, since it is so expensive for what it does.

@Ben_H said:

@RYNO9881 said:

Forget this, who saw the gsl grand finals?

SO GOOD

The more discussion I read about the Oracle and Replicant, the less I can see them actually making it into the final game, especially the Replicant. The Oracle will replace the carrier as the unit Protoss has that is absolutely useless except in certain situations, since it is so expensive for what it does.

Don't you mean the Tempest? That's the one that's replacing the Carrier. The Oracle is the mineral line harass/stop tech buildings from functioning-unit.

Why do the Zerg get one less new units than the other races when that's the race that already has the less amount of units?

@FluxWaveZ: I believe one of the 'new' Terran and toss units, are in fact replacement. From the sounds of it, Thors are becoming motherships (you can have one, i.e. odin-ish) goliaths are becoming mini-thors. Carriers are gone (from what i hear)... etc.. etc... most of it is likely to change, but as of right now, i think all the races are getting 2 units 'added' to their total, any other unit is likely a replacement.

@Zor said:

@FluxWaveZ: I believe one of the 'new' Terran and toss units, are in fact replacement. From the sounds of it, Thors are becoming motherships (you can have one, i.e. odin-ish) goliaths are becoming mini-thors. Carriers are gone (from what i hear)... etc.. etc... most of it is likely to change, but as of right now, i think all the races are getting 2 units 'added' to their total, any other unit is likely a replacement.

But Zerg are losing Overseer and gaining the Viper unit.

@GunslingerPanda said:

@Zor said:

@FluxWaveZ: I believe one of the 'new' Terran and toss units, are in fact replacement. From the sounds of it, Thors are becoming motherships (you can have one, i.e. odin-ish) goliaths are becoming mini-thors. Carriers are gone (from what i hear)... etc.. etc... most of it is likely to change, but as of right now, i think all the races are getting 2 units 'added' to their total, any other unit is likely a replacement.

But Zerg are losing Overseer and gaining the Viper unit.

Just found this article, reading it now, but from the sounds of it, it is echoing what was said already.

Shredder: New terrain unit that does aoe, seems like a def unit, new unit

Hellion Battle Mode; Just a new mode for Hellion's, not really a new unit

Warhounds: Like thors, but smaller and good against machines (not bio), new unit (might be a replacement)

Viper: Zerg spell caster, new unit

Swarm Host: produces an endless supply of broodling like troops, new unit

Locust: The new broodling like troop, new unit

Repliicant: Can transform into any non massive unit, kind of fills the old dt mind control role, new unit

Oracle: The best annoyance unit ever (can phase buildings out of existence, prevents usage for production and research), new unit

Tempest: Capital ship for toss, does AoE in the air, new unit

The article didn't mention which units were being cut (other than the thor becoming an unique unit), so i am not sure how it will balance out, but there a lot of time, and things are bound to change, so we'll see.

@_@ Jezus christ....

just

damn

This is gonna change everything

i'm excited

It also seems like it'll make lower level play way more crazy, which I like

Wow, I never expected them to REMOVE units from multiplayer. I think it's awesome to see more transforming units, but I am saddened by the loss of the Thor's anti-air.

What I don´t like from the new protoss units is that none of them are direct combat ground units.

not so much a fan of the new protoss units... I only like the Oracal...
 
 
that new zerg detector's pull mechanic seems like maybe too much, and that new Terran defense feild thing is a joke... now terran never have to worry about counter attacks?!

I'm curious to see what this does for terran mech. Right now I use mech in all 3 matchups, with thors as the real damage dealers and anti-air of my army. It worries me when it says the warhound has a "small ground attack" that's effective against machines. I guess only time will tell, hopefully blizzard can balance HoTS slightly better than they did WoL.

I don't understand why the Swarm Host can only spawn whatever it spawns while burrowed. It's kinda like making a siege tank only able to attack while in siege mode.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Cataphract1014 said:

• Burrowed banelings can MOVE. Possibly an upgrade!

Yes.

YES.

No more overlords?

YES.

Swarm Host?

YES.

THE TIME OF THE ZERG HAS COME.

@BoG said:

No more overlords?

YES.

Haha, playing Zerg would be a bit hard without anymore Overlords, I think. You probably meant Overseers, which were going to be replaced by the Wasp, but that Blizzard have recently said remain in HotS (albeit they are trying to find some unique skills to further differentiate them from Overlords).