The Iron Ones are an artificial kind of undead warrior. They are forged by merging the souls of deceased individuals within strong iron armor. This results in a strong warrior with potent magical properties as well.
Appearances[]
The Iron Ones make appearances in multiple games of the SpellForce franchise. During the war of the Circle mages, the necromancer Hokan Ashir was known for having used the Iron Ones to push back his rival, Uram the Red, and his demon hordes at Kaith Halur.
Later on, during the Shaikan era, his daughter Yasha Ashir used her fathers knowledge for recreating a new kind of Iron Ones. However, during the Purity Wars, it was revealed that a more crude variant of the Iron Ones was already used way before the Convocation by the Purity and its leader Rondar Lacaine.
SpellForce 1[]
The Blades created by Hokan Ashir had black armor covered in spikes and blades. They mostly did not use weapons but their very own body for attacking with enormous brutality and were able to break deep into enemy lines. Because of this unique fighting style, Hokan Ashirs Iron Ones were also nicknamed Blades. The Iron Ones made by Hokan Ashir used soul gems to fuel the metal bodies with life. Smaller Iron Minions just needed few souls, the intermediate weavers needed a lot more, while the biggest general class needed an even higher not yet stated amount of souls. What number of souls were required for an iron scorpion or a Soulforger has not been stated.
Minion[]
The most simple Iron One is only equipped with a sharp scythe-like arm and minor ice magic spells. It is rather weak compared to the other Iron Ones, but they could be produced in huge numbers. The number of souls required are only very low, thus the total number of fighters could be much higher.
Weaver[]
The weaver's are armored way better than minions and have access to advanced magic. There are lots of different sub-types: Some have been seen using black, some fire magic but the most common magic had been ice magic among the weavers.
Princeps[]
The field elite of the Blades had been the Princeps units, which cut through enemy lines like nothing else. Also they have access to the most powerful magic among the iron ones. Princeps units are never to be underestimated.
Scorpion[]
In SpellForce: Shadow of the Phoenix, these Iron Ones have been seen in the Black Jungle where they reinforced Hokan Ashir's Blade armies. They have strong attacks, but their most dangerous ability is to damage even the sturdiest buildings form a large distance with their magic. According to rumors, said scorpions had been used in the fight with Uram the Red to break the walls of Mulandir during the Convocation.
Soulforger[]
As Hokan's Blade army became more and more important for his fights against Uram, he did not spend his own time in creating Blades. He instead created the Soulforgers to forge the warriors. Soulforgers are the peak of Hokan's blade army and mostly stay at safe bases to ensure a never-ending flood of Blade warriors.
SpellForce 2[]
Yasha Ashir had a different approach of creating the Iron Ones. Instead of souls she used gems filled with the magical properties of the Shaikans' blood. Also, her design was slightly different. Her Iron Ones used weapons and less their body to attack and had a more classic armor design.
SpellForce 3[]
Long before Hokan Ashir used his Iron Ones during the Convocation wars the Purity used Iron Ones. In their secret base at the Windwall Foothills the souls of the so-called Defilers were used to fuel the Iron Ones with the help of unrefined aria and dark magic. To fuel one Iron One the souls of five mages were needed. Those Iron Ones had next to no similarity to Yasha's or Hokan's Iron Ones. The Purity of Light's Iron Ones were pretty much just huge walking human armors clad in black and wearing huge black-steel clubs. Another special variant is the Gifted Iron One which hurls black magic projectiles onto enemies that deal huge damage and are to be considered extremely dangerous.
Trivia[]
While the Iron Ones in SpellForce 1 were considered to be undead and as such have strong debuffs such as Holy Wrath being effective against them, they are not undead in SpellForce 2 as all skills that deal bonus effects versus undead are only applying regular effect to Yasha's Iron Ones.